


the perks of being a superhero (there are none)

by LoveGeek15



Series: Pretty Setter Superhero Squad (the Series) [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Yahaba Shigeru, Developing Relationship, Fluff, Gay Kyoutani Kentarou, Is this slow burn?, M/M, Mutual Pining, POV Yahaba Shigeru, Pining, Pretty Setter Squad, Pretty Setter Superhero Squad, T rating for the profanity, mentions of other haikyuu characters, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:00:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 30,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26673289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoveGeek15/pseuds/LoveGeek15
Summary: “So... what do you do?”“Hm?” Kyoutani grunts, annoyed.“What’s keeping you from going to your training. You know, the one you have to pay for each week?”“...”Yahaba glares at Kyoutani’s face. He always does this. Never shares anything about his personal life. To be fair, he hasn’t told Kyoutani anything from his personal life either, but that’s because Kyoutani never asks.Sighing, Yahaba begins lifts himself from the mat. “Ugh, whatever, let’s just-”“Newspaper.”Yahaba pauses. Kyoutani’s eyes are open now, staring up at him. When they make eye contact, Kyoutani looks back at the high ceilings. “I work for the Sendai Frogs Newspaper. Superhero department.”Fuck.-In which boys are boys, aka Yahaba fails to understand his feelings, has good friends, and gets a promotion at work. Oh, and the setters are superheroes and everyone either works at a newspaper company or athletic center.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji & Yahaba Shigeru, Ennoshita Chikara & Yahaba Shigeru, Kyoutani Kentarou/Yahaba Shigeru, Miya Atsumu & Yahaba Shigeru, Oikawa Tooru & Kuroo Tetsurou & Sugawara Koushi, Oikawa Tooru & Yahaba Shigeru, Shirabu Kenjirou & Yahaba Shigeru, Watari Shinji & Yahaba Shigeru
Series: Pretty Setter Superhero Squad (the Series) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2077848
Comments: 22
Kudos: 91





	1. Now I'm shakin', drinkin' all this coffee

**Author's Note:**

> i can't believe the first fic i wrote for this fandom is seijoh. oh well.
> 
> A big thanks to [Caws](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandomchildd/pseuds/death-by-volleyball) for thinking of the universe and allowing me to write my take on it! 
> 
> enjoy guys!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Previous chap title: Wishing for the impossible

Waking up at 6 pm isn’t actually that bad. No, Yahaba didn’t actually sleep at 11 in the morning, he just passed out after a small, inconvenient training session with Shirabu. Accidents happen sometimes. On purpose.

The sun was already setting by the time he arrived at the studio. It’s pretty big; it has its own gymnastics area, indoor field, and small parkour course as well as a small area for the training mats. At first, it was simply a random building in the middle of the city; he didn’t know what the place was for. He sort of gets it now, after working there for two years. He greets his friend and coworker, Watari, and his student, Ayka, before heading to the lockers. 

He plays music softly on his phone while changing into his workout gear. He didn’t have the time to since hopping out of bed. This session is Yahaba’s very first session in the late evening. He usually takes early morning students so that his afternoons are open for either lunch dates, usually by himself, or roaming around Kozume’s ever expansive mansion. Seriously, how’s he only 26 with this much money? 

“So you decided to take another one in, huh, Shigeru? Aren’t you only supposed to be part-time?” Watari teases as he leans on the lockers beside him, crossing his arms. 

Rolling his eyes, Yahaba tosses his outside clothes in his locker and sits on the bench. “You make it sound like I do this all the time.”

“Because you kinda do?”

“No, I don’t?” Yahaba laughs, sorting through his duffle bag for his phone. He swears he threw it in here before leaving.

Watari kicks his leg. “Four, now five students in seven months?”

Yahaba glances up at him, raising an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“And three of them left because you were done with them?!” Watari throws his hands up. Maybe it looks like Yahaba didn’t flinch. ‘Cause he didn’t. At all. “They completed their basic training in like, what, three months? And then they wanted to up and leave?”

“Because they said they wanted to try something else,” Yahaba shrugs. His phone definitely isn’t in there. Where could it be? Hopefully nobody calls him, though the unfortunate truth is that it’s rare for him to get a call. But it’s nice to be prepared.

“You can’t keep scaring away your students.” 

Yahaba looks over his shoulder and grimaces. 

Watari’s secret weapon, his disappointed look, hands set on his hips. “You’re lucky Mei-chan is still here. Wait- no, you’re lucky _I’m_ here to save your ass from being fired.”

“Woah, woah, woah,” Yahaba shakes his hands between them. Watari’s move is highly effective. Sighing, Yahaba covers his eyes. "Okay, fine. I’ll try really hard to make sure this one stays or something. Stop looking so disappointed in me.”

“Or something alright,” Watari sighs, walking behind the bench to the door. He pauses. “Actually, now that I think about it, they were all male, right?”

“What?”

“Mei-chan is, like, your only female student.” Watari taps his chin, leaning on the side of the door. 

“And a child? I don’t like where this conversation is going,” Yahaba shrinks, locking his locker and walking to him. Maybe he left it in his room? Oh good god, what if Shirabu stole it. Yahaba probably won’t be that busy tonight since he’s training a new beginner. He could probably pop by there once he’s finished.

Before he can wish his best friend good night, Watari gasps dramatically, pointing at Yahaba, a smile forming on his face. 

Yahaba frowns. “What?”

Watari bites his lips, but it doesn’t stop his grin. He tries covering his mouth. “You slept with them!”

“ _WHAT?!”_ Yahaba shouts, pushing his friend. Watari stumbles forward and shakes with laughter. “Stop laughing!”

Wiping fake tears from his eyes, Watari pokes Yahaba’s face. “Your face is red!” 

“My face is _not_ red!” Yahaba bites back, slapping his friend’s hand out of his face, covering his cheeks with his own cold hands. Okay, so maybe his face was a little warm. But- “I didn’t sleep with _any_ of them! I was serious when I said they wanted to try something new!”

“Whatever you say~” Watari smiles innocently, pushing the locker room’s door open. Only, it was stopped halfway by something—or someone—on the other side.

A man, a little shorter than Yahaba, blinks before shaking his head. “Ow,” he grunts eloquently. His eyes make a direct course to Yahaba’s. 

“Oh, sorry, Kyoutani,” Watari apologizes, raising an eyebrow at Yahaba. “Are you here for your lesson?”

The man, Kyoutani, turns to Watari and nods. He looks about their age. What’s up with that weird hairstyle? “Yeah.”

“I didn’t know you switched trainers.”

What was Yahaba doing here. Why does it feel like he’s a third wheel?

“Yuma-san can’t make it to 6:30 or later.”

Wow, he’s blunt.

Watari nods solemnly, “Yeah, he has kids. Why’d you switch?”

Kyoutani’s expression changes for once. The wrinkles on his forehead weren’t as intense. “I got promoted at work… kinda.”

“Hey, congrats!” Watari smiles, patting Kyoutani’s shoulder. Are they friends? Surely Yahaba would’ve known this Kyoutani kid if he was friends with Watari, right? 

Right?

Watari glances at his wrist as if there was a watch on it. “Hey, I have to go now, but have fun with Yahaba!”

Kyoutani blinks at him. “Who?” 

With a final smile, they watch Watari's retreating back skip into the locker room. 

After a moment, Yahaba sneaks a glance at his new trainee. (Un)fortunately, Kyoutani has the same idea and oh- now they’re staring at each other. 

Yikes _._ Wait, is that eyeliner? 

Yahaba couldn’t really get an answer before Kyoutani turns his head away, staring at the very interesting door frame. The silence that settles between them feels awkward.

“Um,” Yahaba taps on the door he’s still holding open, “Did you hear anything? Before we walked out?”

Kyoutani glances up at him, tilts his head down, then walks past him, shaking his head. “Nope,” he says with a pop.

Slowly letting the door close behind him, Yahaba hopes that Kyoutani is the type of guy who doesn’t speak sarcasm.

-_-_-

From the way Kyoutani first introduced himself in the locker room, Yahaba should’ve known that teaching him was going to be difficult. 

-

_“But you’ve already started training with Yuma-sama?!”_

_“Not for that long.”_

_“Then how long then?”_

_“...”_

-

Kyoutani is erratic and doesn’t follow what Yahaba says most of the time. He wanted to do everything his way, not even in the way his previous trainer taught him! And Yahaba knew Yuma-san for a pretty long time; he learned how to teach from him! 

Sometimes, Kyoutani’s late for lessons or doesn’t show up at all. Today is the first day in the past month and a half that he’s been on time.

“So you finally decided to show up on time for once,” Yahaba says, crossing his arms as Kyoutani exits the locker room.

Kyoutani yawns, stretching his arms up above his head. “I’m busy.” 

“With what?” Yahaba asks, raising an eyebrow. His eyes momentarily focus on Kyoutani’s biceps. All muscle, no technique. How does someone have the looks of a thug but can’t do anything with it? Does he go to the gym?

“Yeah?”

Yahaba blinks. “What?”

He’s squinting at him. “I do go to the gym?”

Oh shit. Did he say that out loud? “ _Well_ , Kyoutani-kun,” Yahaba plasters a smile on his face, “It’s a shame all that muscle is for show. You wouldn’t be able to do _anything_ without my teaching.” The fuck? What in the hell is he saying? Kyoutani could probably crush Yahaba’s ribcage with his arms alone.

“Probably.”

Yahaba tenses. Probably? Probably what? He didn’t blurt out his thoughts again, did he?

When he sees that Kyoutani doesn’t look too distraught with his question or maybe by his earlier statement, he shakes his thoughts away and grabs his water bottle. “We’ll be training your parkour skills today.”

“Can’t we do jujitsu today?”

Yahaba turns to Kyoutani, who’s now sitting cross-legged on the mats with his bottle beside him.

From the few times Yahaba’s actually interacted with Kyoutani (because when he’s actually training, he… ignores him? Focuses on the activity too much? They don’t really talk a lot), this action seems foreign. He would either grunt in annoyance or grunt in acceptance. Either way, he still follows along.

Yahaba crosses his arms and taps on his sad, not as buff bicep. Super strength doesn’t mean anything if you can’t show it, even if it’s not that major. He glares at Kyoutani. “Your parkour is the worst out of all the skills I’ve taught you.”

With a big sigh, Kyoutani flops backward, throwing his arms and legs up and landing with a _bam_ , like a child _._ “I’m _tired_ today, alright? I don’t want to do anything with lifting myself.”

Now Yahaba is really worried. Is he drunk?

“Are you drunk?”

“Ha!” Kyoutani yells. It echoes in the room. “No?”

Yahaba cautiously moves up to him, his hands behind his back. “Is that a question or an answer.”

“Answer,” Kyoutani replies immediately. His eyes are closed and for once, he’s holding a neutral expression. No lines. 

“You should stop frowning. You’ll get wrinkles.”

“Don’t care.”

“Well, you should.” Yahaba carefully sits to his right, far enough away where Kyoutani couldn’t kick him. Hopefully.

It’s silent again, and not the nice kind of silence where both of them have something to do. It’s like that first night at the locker room entrance. Is it weird to say that he felt nostalgic even if it wasn’t that long ago?

Yahaba bites his lip. “So... what do you do?”

“Hm?” Kyoutani grunts in an annoyed tone.

“What’s keeping you from going to your training. You know, the one you have to pay for each week?”

“...”

Yahaba glares at Kyoutani’s face. He always does this. Never shares anything about his personal life. To be fair, he hasn’t told Kyoutani anything from his personal life _either_ , but that’s because Kyoutani never _asks_. 

Sighing, Yahaba begins lifts himself from the mat. “Ugh, whatever, let’s just-”

“Newspaper.”

Yahaba pauses. Kyoutani’s eyes are open now, staring up at him. When they make eye contact, Kyoutani looks back at the high ceilings. “I work for the Sendai Frogs Newspaper.”

Oh god. What’s happening? They only meet, like, three times a week! He was exaggerating earlier! Is this karma from what he thought earlier? Kyoutani doesn’t need to share anything!

Yahaba goes to tell him this when Kyoutani continues- “Superhero department.”

Yahaba hopes he doesn’t look as distressed on the outside as he is on the inside. 

Superhero department? He writes about superheroes in the newspaper? Man, what a turn of events. Not like Yahaba should be worrying in the slightest bit, since he’s really only the backup and sidekick and hasn’t actually made his debut yet, _but_ he does have connections to Oikawa, aka the most egotistical superhero, quoting Kuroo-san (but that’s rich, literally and metaphorically), Galaxy. That would be an amazing opportunity for Kyoutani if he got an exclusive interview with one of the heroes.

“Close your mouth, you look like an idiot.”

Yahaba clamps his mouth shut with a _clack_. “Wow…” 

“The hell’s that supposed to mean?”

When he looks back at Kyoutani, he’s sitting up, leaning on his fully extended arms with a challenging look in his eyes. Yahaba looks behind him at the locker room sign. “Nothing.”

“Nothing, huh? Is it because you expected me to do something other than throwing around skinny pimps like you?”

Is. Is Kyoutani smiling?

“What?” Yahaba smiles back awkwardly. Really, this is the only thing that his mind can come up with? He’s having a fucking crisis! What if Kyoutani figures out that he does business with Oikawa?! Aren’t newspaper people or whatever they’re called, really competitive? And in your face about the facts? To get the news out first? 

What do people in newspapers do.

Kyoutani glares at him. “Shut up.”

“what?” 

Now it’s only coming out in distressed whispers? Keep it together, Yahaba.

“You’re thinking too loud.”

Yahaba blinks. “Excuse me?”

“Your smile is too rigid. Like, you’re worried about something.” 

Are newspaper workers usually this perceptive? Yahaba laughs breathily, waving a hand at him. “How can a smile be too rigid?”

Kyoutani shrugs, leaning more on his right. “Normally when you smile, your eyes aren’t droopy.”

“Droopy?” Is that supposed to be an insult? Suddenly his water bottle is the most interesting thing in the room.

“I dunno,” Kyoutani yawns, stretching his arms forward to his feet, “Unless you really are that shallow and use that fake smile every time I come here.”

What is with him today?! Kyoutani’s never even said a complete sentence to him before this! And now he’s just spitting insults like his older sister did before moving to college. It was a bad week. She apologized through his dms.

“I don’t have a fake smile, but I won’t deny that I’m a little shallow,” Yahaba mutters, rolling his water bottle on the mat beside him.

“A little?” Kyoutani raises an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth lifting a bit in a teasing manner. And that shouldn’t make his heart skip a beat, but… no. No it doesn’t. What is he saying? Maybe he should’ve stayed at home.

Yahaba shakes his head, pushing himself off the mat. “Whatever, I don’t care if you’re drunk or tired. We’re practicing your parkour, dumbass.”

“I already told you, I’m not drunk.” Kyoutani sighs. But he follows behind anyway. 

They don’t end up talking for the rest of the day.

-_-_-

“How long have you known Kyoutani?”

The sound of the tv commercials about some “super hair product” fills up his and Watari’s shared living room. Actually, it’s more like Watari’s living room since Yahaba technically doesn’t live there anymore. There are pros and cons of knowing Oikawa Tooru. He’s not sure what to classify this as.

“We went to college together,” Watari replies with a mouthful of chips. 

Currently, he’s at the edge of their small couch; Yahaba’s legs thrown across Watari. Yahaba takes a handful of chips and stuffs it in his mouth. “Were you friends in college? Are you still friends?”

“What’s with all the questions, dude? Did something happen between you and Kyoutani?” Watari turns to him, rubbing his nose. He apparently had a canceled lesson with one of his students that night, so they were both free with nothing to do. Which is very rare; they don’t really see each other at night, which is good for Yahaba since he had an excuse for “being out so late”. 

“No.” Yahaba snorts. 

Definitely not. Nothing happened. Seriously!

Watari squints down at him. “Your face says otherwise. Which is saying something, Mr. Best Imposter in Among Us.”

“You’re just salty that you’re always the first to die.”

“I-” Watari stutters before slapping his friend’s stomach. “Oh, shut up.”

“You didn’t answer my question though!”

“You didn’t answer mine,” Watari shrugs, increasing the volume of the tv. The cook’s meal in the show sizzles loudly, enough to make your ears ring. Yahaba sits up, almost flinging the chip bag while trying to wrestle the remote out of Watari’s hands. 

“Lower the volume!” Yahaba shouts, extending his arms from where he sat. Still, Watari keeps the remote out of his reach.

Watari triumphantly grins at him. “What happened between you and Kyoutani?!” 

“I’m not telling you!” Yahaba yells back. Watari’s surprisingly strong and even though it’s very minor, Yahaba doesn’t want to accidentally pop out his shoulder. And- “Besides, I asked you first!”

Pulling his spine straight, Watari smiles calmly. “Yes, we’re still friends...” Yahaba backs up and squints at him. “-in Facebook.”

Yahaba groans and drops his arms, sinking into the couch.

Useless. He needs better friends.

“Aw, don’t be like that, Yahaba.” Watari laughs, shoving Yahaba’s shoulder. “I’m just messing with you. He reached out to me about training for his new job. I guess he didn’t expect to rise in ranks so quickly.”

Yahaba glances at him. “Did you know he works in the superhero department for the Sendai Frogs newspaper?”

Watari scoffs. “Seriously?”

Yahaba leans back on the couch, focusing on the tv judge’s reactions. He didn’t mean to word vomit Kyoutani’s job to Watari since they’re ‘Facebook Friends.’ He crosses his arms. “Yeah.”

Watari leans forward into Yahaba’s space, using his left arm as a table for his right arm to rest on. With a hand delicately on his cheek, Watari smiles and flutters his eyelashes at Yahaba. “ _He_ told you that?”

“Yeah?” Yahaba raises an eyebrow, shoving Watari to the side. “And stop with that face. It’s disturbing.”

“How’s it disturbing?”

“You look too much like a girl.”

“ _HEY!_ ”

-_-_-

Before heading off to sleep that night, Watari explains the basics of his and Kyoutani’s relationship in exchange for what Kyoutani said to Yahaba. Obviously, he couldn’t just tell Watari what was going on in his brain and what could’ve been implied if he overthought it enough. So in the end, he ended up sounding very vague.

“Seriously,” Watari deadpans, “That’s it?”

Yahaba nods, arms crossed. “Pretty much.”

Watari drops his head into his hands. His voice comes out muffled. “I tell you all this stuff about my best friend, Kyoutani Kentarou, and all you tell me is that you talked about his drinking problem, wrinkles, and job?!”

“Hold up,” Yahaba points his finger up, pursing his lips. “ _Who’s_ your best friend? _Who’s_ paying for half of everything in this apartment? _Who’s_ gonna be your emotional punching bag for when you get back with your ex for the third time?”

Watari glares at Yahaba, pointing his finger at him. “Oh, do _not_ bring Sasaki-chan into this.”

“Oh, you’re already back with her?” Yahaba smiles innocently. 

“Shigeru…”

“Who’s your best friend?”

Bated silence fills the room, a showdown on whoever keeps the longest eye contact, both of them not blinking even once. Finally, Watari sticks his tongue out and opens the door to his room. He calls out before he slams his door, “Definitely _not_ you!”

Yahaba gasps. “ _Shinji!_ ”

-_-_-

The first time Yahaba was called for a mission was… uneventful. 

It happened about two months after he was ‘hired’ (forced into for fun) by Oikawa. A simple, lowkey robbery at a civilian’s apartment in which Yahaba had to simply listen to Oikawa’s advice on how to handle the situation from headquarters. That’s usually how most of Yahaba’s missions go, learning from an expert. That’s where most of Yahaba’s admiration for Oikawa grew.

Oikawa discovered that Yahaba had unusual strength and spectacular healing powers after being in a collision with a runaway motorcycle. Yahaba chose to push the motorcycle off Oikawa instead of chasing the culprit. Mistake number one. There weren’t a lot of people nearby, mostly because they were in an underground parking lot, and Yahaba was being reckless for some reason. So, before healing Oikawa, he accidentally threw the motorcycle into a wall. The motorcycle didn’t breakthrough, he’s not _that_ strong, and Oikawa, starry-eyed, stuck by his side ever since. 

That was way back when Oikawa and his friends- er partners were first introduced to the public after a new evil group rose throughout japan. Well, evil might be a stretch, more like an inconvenience if anything. It gave the heroes something to do since Kozume funded Oikawa and Kuroo’s ‘passion project’. Yahaba had to admit, it was pretty fun some of the time and a well paying job, so who can really complain? 

The ‘mission’ in which he figured out his role, aka Oikawa’s sidekick, was when it was announced drunkenly at a get-together (which Yahaba now actively avoids because drunk Oikawa is a sad and pining Oikawa. And even though Yahaba really looks up to him, he doesn’t ever want to deal with that again). Now, Oikawa’s perfectly capable of doing the saving all by himself, but when times get rough, another hero would be there to back him up. It was usually Sugawara-san or Moniwa-san in the early days if he’s being a mess or Miya or previously Semi-san when he needed more power. 

This system of bringing in main or senior heroes for battles lasted for two years. But this time, it's different. 

It’s present-day; about five months after Watari told him Kyoutani was his best friend (of course he was joking. Probably). Yahaba receives a call from headquarters in the middle of his lunch. 

“ _Yahaba_?”

Yahaba blinks at the sudden voice. Usually when Yahaba gets a call, it’s Akaashi, head of suit-design and planning or something, who informs him for his talk-through with Oikawa. He doesn’t really know the exact job name but after a disastrous first battle with Kuroo-san making the plan, Akaashi took over. This is definitely not Akaashi.

Yahaba glares at his phone. “Shirabu?”

“ _Hey, uh, this might sound a little sudden, but we kinda need you on the field today?_ ”

“What?!” Yahaba looks around him urgently to see if anyone heard him, even though he’s alone in his room in the apartment. 

In the field? _In the field?_ What the hell is going on outside?

Sprinting out of his room (yes, he was eating lunch on his bed. Lunch-in-bed exists), Yahaba fumbles with his tv remote and flips on the news channel. The woman reporter says a few words he doesn’t bother to listen to when he sees the headline.

_Superhero Galaxy knocked out by the Black Cobra’s new prototype drone. Foxbane barely keeps it at bay as Sparrow carries Galaxy to an unknown location._

He covers his mouth, his eyes widening. “Oh my god.”

“ _Yeah, I know. Silver’s on his way to your apartment, so don’t move. I’ll send you coords of our location in a bit._ ”

“Seriously?!”

A knock on Yahaba’s window startles him off his couch. Outside of his window of the third story of his apartment complex is… nothing? Yahaba tilts his head and gets up from the floor to open his window. Hopefully, it’s Akaashi and not another bird who thought his window was a mirror. 

An arm materializes, detached from its body, floating in midair. It's holding his suit, the one that Yahaba only tried once when Akaashi first made it.

“... A-Akaashi?” Yahaba whispers at the arm.

The arm shakes up and down like a nod. 

“Okay, then…?” Slowly reaching for his suit, another hand appears along with Akaashi’s entire upper torso, holding Yahaba’s hand between his.

A small smile forms on Akaashi’s face. “You’ll do great, Yahaba-san. We called you because we know you can do it.”

Right. Of course he can do it. He’s done it before, plenty of times. There shouldn’t be anything to worry about. Yahaba nods once. “Right.”

Akaashi pushes the suit into Yahaba’s hands. “Then good luck.”

_Yeah, thanks._

“Oh!” Yahaba calls out. “By the way, how are you here?”

Akaashi blinks. “I flew here?” He shakes his head, “Oh, I’m testing out Kozume’s flying motorcycle. Your apartment is still in the same place as Oikawa-san last wrote down.”

“Huh.” Yahaba nods. Well then. Luckily Watari’s having a training session right now, but hopefully next time he can just… rush to Kozume’s mansion. Akaashi’s fully invisible once again as Yahaba shouts out, “Thanks!”

Now’s the hard part: figuring out how to put the suit on and if the suit still fits.

Ten minutes later and, turns out, it’s a little tight on the limbs (this either means he gained weight or muscle. He’s hoping for the latter), but overall the same as he last remembered it. A muted teal blue tight suit with silver-white accents and black borders along his sides and across his chest. A large white plus sign displayed itself proudly on the lines across his chest, an upside-down teal triangle as its border. White knee high boots and elbow length gloves completed the outfit with of course, a silver mask. His eyes were covered with a one-sided gray lens, to somehow protect his identity. As a last minute upgrade, Akaashi added a hoodie, one where it stuck beside your ears to keep it in place.

It was ridiculous, but honestly, it fit fabulously on Yahaba. 

Wait. The Black Cobra. Right.

Sprinting out of his window and miraculously landing on the ground, Yahaba dials up Sparrow’s comms.

It stutters in and out of range, but he can still catch a few things he’s saying.

“ _Building… Abandoned… College… Now!_ ”

“College?” Yahaba mutters to himself. There are at least three different colleges nearby, and to be honest, he hasn’t really looked at the map Akaashi sends and updates every few days. Hopefully, Sparrow’s smart enough to pick the one that’s the most inconvenient for the drone to find—and the closest one to his apartment.

-_-_-

When Yahaba finally makes it to the scene where Sparrow last sent coordinates, Sparrow’s comms open clearly. 

“ _WHERE ARE YOU._ ”

Yahaba flinches at the volume. “I’m here, I’m here! Don’t yell.”

“ _Ugh, what took you so long? Oikawa-san keeps complain-_ ” 

Another voice interrupts, “ _Yahaba-chan? Is that you? I can see the light. I don’t think I have that much longer to live!_ ” 

“ _If you can say all of that with a single breath, I think you’ll be able to see more than just the light at the end of the tunnel. Hurry, Yahaba!_ ”

They must be hiding in the underground garage unit near the office buildings, from how echoey their voices sound like. Yahaba quietly wishes he got superspeed instead of superstrength.

-_-_-

After healing Oikawa-san (and Shirabu. He got caught in the fire trying to escape), Yahaba followed far behind them, back to the fight Foxbane was at, who was barely dodging the drone. Sparrow and Galaxy were able to keep the drone at bay while Yahaba healed Miya a few buildings away. 

“So ya finally got to get in some of the action, huh, Yahaba-kun?” Miya grins in pain, clutching his side that was bleeding, now scarring up thanks to Yahaba.

“Yeah, I guess,” Yahaba laughs breathlessly. He’s still processing that fact. He knows he’s dreamt of this moment finally coming. It doesn’t really change how he’s feeling right now, though.

“Ugh, if you were here every time we fucked up, we would’ve won a ton more battles, yknow?”

Of course Yahaba knows. He just… wasn’t ready at the time. He’s probably not even ready now either. Earlier, Sparrow had to steady his hand because it was shaking so much while Yahaba healed him. Yahaba bites his lower lip and frowns. “Yeah…”

He can feel Miya’s gaze on him. He’s intense like that. Like most of the main heroes are. 

“What?” Yahaba asks. You can’t really tell what Miya has on his mind. _It’s either stupidly wise or just plain stupid,_ Semi-san said one time while they were watching Galaxy and Foxbane fighting the earliest drones. 

Miya finally sighs. “... Nothin’.” 

“Nothing?” Yahaba glances up at him. 

“Mm, nothin’.” Miya shrugs, shifting his body as the scar completely disappears. 

As they both stand, Yahaba scratches his neck. “You’ll all have to go by Akaashi to get your suit repaired.”

“Yeah, yeah. Thanks again for healin’ me back up.” Foxbane nods, the heavy slaps of his hand landing on Yahaba’s shoulder. “We’ll see ya at the Litterbox?”

Yahaba cringes at the nickname. “Ew, don’t call it that. It’s not going to stick.” That mansion, their main base of operation, didn’t deserve that kind of nickname. _It’s like a Batcave! But cat-based, since Kozume can turn into a cat!_ Miya said while watching a previous battle. 

Foxbane winks at Yahaba before pulling his mask on (He wanted a mask like that because it reminded him of his favorite American comic hero) and posing his hands on his hips. “Tell that to Kenma and then come back to me about that.”

Yahaba crosses his arms, raising an eyebrow at him. “You’ll lose.”

With a lighthearted laugh, Foxbane bops Yahaba’s elbow with his own. “That better not be a death wish for me going into battle.”

“Then let’s see if I’m right, shall we?” Yahaba grins, lifting his chin.

Foxbane blinks down at Yahaba, seemingly frozen. 

“Lost your cool, foxy?”

“I…, oh, shut up and get outta here, will ya?” Foxbane whines, waving his hand in the air at him. He jumps from the edge of the rooftop to the next, making his way towards the crashes and shouts of the warzone.

Yahaba cups his hands around his mouth. “Good luck!”

He could barely hear a faint shout. 

“I don’t need it!”

-_-_-

So he was wrong earlier. That’s a good thing, right?

Miya pulls off his mask, his face dripping in sweat and distress. “I can’t believe ya didn’t believe I would come out of that alive, Yahaba-kun!”

Yahaba squints at him. “You do know that I’m older than you, right?” 

Atsumu opens his mouth, then pauses, his finger hanging stupidly in midair. Akaashi’s typing in the background clacks into their ears as the sad, rusty gears turn in Atsumu’s head. Or at least that’s what Yahaba thinks is going on in his brain. 

Yahaba pulls out a chair behind him and carefully sits down on it, crossing his arms and legs. It’s remarkable how still Atsumu can be. Standing there like that with his hand up, mouth gaping, still in his golden and black themed suit. It’s absolutely hilarious, and being around this group of people for a long time really teaches you how to keep your cool, aka how to act like someone’s an idiot. In this case, Atsumu. 

“Y-” Atsumu stutters after a few moments. “Yes. Of, yeah, of course, I knew that!” He huffs nervously. Walking up to Yahaba, Atsumu pulls him off the chair and pushes him towards the door. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, Akaashi-kun here needs to repair my suit, so I’m gonna need ya to get outta here. Mingle with the others and such.”

With a final shove, Yahaba turns around—“Mingle?”—and promptly gets the door slammed to his face.

…

Yeah, no. He’s going home. As exciting as the fight was, Yahaba would rather conk out at his shoddy apartment for the rest of the week than mingle with the others. Plus, he has training with Kyoutani later. He can’t show up feeling and looking like a zombie.

-_-_-

“So, what happened to you?”

Yahaba inhales sharply, then glares at his shoes. What the hell is this? His shoulders aren’t supposed to be tense and his chest is _definitely_ not supposed to be beating so fast. It’s just a question, just like the others Kyoutani has asked before. There’s nothing special about this.

Yahaba pauses his stretches to blink up innocently at his trainee. “You’re worried about my well-being? I never thought I’d see the day.”

“I don’t,” Kyoutani says in a flat tone. 

Yahaba can feel himself deflate. He should’ve expected this answer. 

Kyoutani’s arms were crossed, a bored expression on his unfortunately creased features. Especially with the harsh lights shadowing his already dark eyes. And also his hair- “You look like you aged.”

What. 

Yahaba straightens. “What?” 

He _was_ going to mention Kyoutani’s own expression, but Yahaba didn’t even expect such a low blow from a silent, brooding type like Kyoutani. What does he even say to that? Sure, he felt a little tired from earlier. Maybe he should’ve checked his reflection before sprinting to the studio. He still had two minutes before Kyoutani showed up. Surely he looks more alive now that they finished training.

“Pick your jaw off the floor, prince hair gel.” Kyoutani rolls his eyes, taking a swig from his sports drink. 

“Two insults!” Yahaba splutters, pushing himself up from the mat. He glares at Kyoutani, pointing a finger at him. “And I do _not_ look old.”

Kyoutani nods, swiping his hand across his mouth. He raises an eyebrow, a tease of a smirk at the corner of his mouth. “So you’re saying you use hair gel?” 

“I…” 

He _could_ deny it. Because it’s the truth; Yahaba doesn’t use hair gel, especially when he’s training (it feels sticky afterward), but... this. Talking to Kyoutani. He kind of doesn’t want it to stop. 

“Maybe.” Yahaba smiles back, shrugging his shoulders as he walks back towards the benches. He plops down on the metal plank, crossing his ankles and opening his water bottle with a _pop_. “You don’t know. And will probably never know. There’s nothing wrong with using a bit of hair gel, right, bleach disaster?”

“I _chose_ to do my hair like this,” Kyoutani replies, squinting at him. Yahaba bites back a smile; he hit a nerve. This is good. Except that Kyoutani’s walking up to him.

Kyoutani stops next to him, his gaze uncomfortably boring into Yahaba’s. Out of the corner of his eyes, he can see Kyoutani place his sports drink on the bench beside him (Yahaba’s not gonna let him win this staring contest. He already lost the last… thirty? When was the last time they actually talked?)

What Yahaba doesn’t see is Kyoutani’s other hand reaching out; and he doesn’t see it until he feels it raking through his very sweaty and tangled hair. 

Kyoutani was either really lucky his hand didn’t get caught or the sweat and tangle canceled each other out because he was able to pass his hand through Yahaba’s entire head of hair with relative ease. And Yahaba couldn’t do anything about it. Well, maybe he could have, if he wasn’t frozen on the spot. But Kyoutani’s hand was in his hair. What’s Yahaba gonna do, pull back? No <3

“K-ky,” Yahaba stutters, feeling his face warm. This is hell. Or heaven? He doesn’t know which. Maybe torture.

Kyoutani stares at his hand in mild half disgust and half interest. He grabs his towel and dries it, throwing the towel on his shoulder and picking up his drink. “Now I know you don’t use hair gel.”

“Of course I don’t use it. Not during lessons, idiot.” Yahaba scoffs, twisting his body away from Kyoutani. He practically drowns himself drinking his water, but he’s gotta give himself a pat on the back for speaking clearly after what just happened. He fans his face, to try to ease the warmth. He’s seen movies of girls doing this and they seem to be better afterward, so it _must_ work.

“Seriously, though,” Kyoutani continues on, seemingly unfazed by what he did. Is this guy dense? “Get some sleep or something. You look like you’ve been drinking caffeine for hours non-stop.” That’s rich, coming from him. Kyoutani works at a newspaper company and is the only one who has _late_ late night lessons, like at eight and one time, 10:30. _They’re_ the ones who live on coffee. “I thought you were supposed to be an expert on this kind of stuff.”

“For others!” Yahaba points out. 

_Wait_ , Yahaba thinks, _That’s not helping my case, is it._

Yahaba glances at Kyoutani and, sure enough, the blond-haired man was frowning at him, confused. Yahaba focuses on the clock on the wall instead. Maybe he _is_ tired.

“Yeah, okay. I’ll sleep early tonight.”

“Good,” Kyoutani pats his shoulder, nodding his head. 

When the door stops creaking behind him, the last remnant of Kyoutani’s physical being of that night, Yahaba has a hard time listening to his music over the thumping in his chest. 

-_-_-

“You’re sleeping early? Who are you and what have you done to Shigeru?”

Yahaba rolls his eyes. He just finished his night routine and was ready to call it a night at the apartment instead of the mansion (he switches every few days) if not for being immediately called out by his fellow night owl roommate. “Kyoutani told me I looked old today and to get some sleep. I’m just-”

“Wait,” Watari jolts, almost spilling his popcorn for his Star Wars marathon, “Kyoutani _told_ you to get some sleep?”

“-listening to his advice.” Yahaba slumps. “And yes, he told me to get some sleep. Because he said-!”

“ _HE_ said?!” Watari laughs maniacally, slamming the bowl on the coffee table and throwing his hands in the air.

“ _He said I look like I aged!_ Hey, stop laughing! _Why_ are you even laughing?!” Yahaba stomps his foot in an attempt to get a handle on the situation. Watari’s squeezing his stomach, wheezing. He must’ve had a boring week if he’s acting like this. Yahaba pinches himself so he won’t laugh with him. “Stooop! Stop it!”

“Oh my _god_ , I need a break!” Watari shouts, throwing his blanket on the couch. “I, I think I’ll go to sleep too, holy shit. That’s hilarious.”

Yahaba squints at him. “ _What_ is?”

Watari covers his popcorn with saran wrap with a skip in his step. Is he really going to sleep with that much energy? He skips to Yahaba, flicks off the tv, and pats his shoulder. “Good night! And get some sleep! Like _Kyoutani_ told you to do!”

“I will?” He raises an eyebrow at him, very worried for his friend. How is he wearing that smile for so long? 

-_-_-

Turns out, an early night helped a lot. He felt energized, like he could take on a thousand henchmen. Instead of doing that (and getting killed from the adrenaline rush), Yahaba decides to run around the city near the studio. His first lesson isn’t until nine and it was currently… 7:30 am. He has a bit of time to kill.

The cold, crisp air reminds Yahaba that winter’s slowly approaching and that the holidays were coming up soon.

Since working with Oikawa and in relation, Kozume, he’s had enough money each winter season to buy his friends and coworkers a nice gift. Sometimes his students, the ones who had a holiday off before they left, too. It’s usually a simple pair of socks or headbands since they always used the same ones every time. To give their outfits a bit of flair.

Every so often, Yahaba would pause at a storefront, window shopping things he could probably buy for Watari and even Miya. He’s already thought of a gift for Mei-chan (her favorite anime’s winter stationery) but the one that’s been bothering him the most was a gift for Kyoutani. Of course, he could always go with the easy option (a pair of socks with puppies on them to spite him) but for some reason, he really wants to impress him. 

He shakes his head at a clothing store, bare from any puppy socks, and continues down the streetlight filled road.

 _Maybe a new camera?_ Yahaba thinks mindlessly. The crunching of fallen leaves tickles his ears as he jogs through them. _Is he a photographer? Or does he write for the Sendai Frogs? Maybe I should buy him his own coffee machine. Does he even_ like _coffee?_

As he turns at a corner, the upbeat music pumping in his earplugs distracts him enough to not see a moving body right in front of him. He collides with the person and falls forward, all the contents in the other person’s bag spilling onto the street. Luckily, none were glass. As quickly as he fell down, Yahaba pushes up and pulls out his earplugs by the string. 

The other man groans, rubbing the back of his head in pain. 

Yahaba blinks down at him. “Chikara?”

“Yup, that’s definitely my name. Now get off of me.”

Yahaba scrambles up and grabs Ennoshita’s hand, pulling him up. They silently stare at the fallen shopping bag and the concrete tattered with a few boxes of ramen and some vegetables. 

“You’re paying for the vegetables.”

Yahaba glances at his friend’s displeased neutral expression then drops down to start picking the food from the ground. “Okay,” he sighs. He knows how much shit Ennoshita’s had to deal with for the past few years. Paying for a bit of food is the least he could do. 

Of course, when he means shit, he’s talking about him and their friend group. This year, Yahaba invited Akaashi and sadly, Shirabu and Miya to the summer festival along with their close friends. He didn’t expect Akaashi to accidentally burn his jinbei or Shirabu to team up with Ennoshita against Futakuchi and him, but that’s exactly what happened. If he ever has to pair up with Futakuchi again, he is going to cry. 

Ennoshita furrows his eyebrows at him, “Why are you even running that fast? Are you running from something?” He spins around and glares at the people behind them. 

Yahaba drops an arm on his shoulder. “Relax, nobody was following me. I think,” he briefly glances behind them, “Um, anyway, I was just running around the city to window shop for presents.”

Ennoshita pushes his arm off, dismissively. “This early? It’s mid-autumn, Shigeru.”

“You know how I am,” Yahaba shrugs. “It’s nice to be prepared.”

“It’s in two months.”

“And?”

Ennoshita shakes his head. “Nevermind. I don’t even know why I try.”

“Aw, don’t be so down,” Yahaba nudges his friend’s arm. “I picked something for you too.”

Ennoshita raises an eyebrow. “Is it another awful 80s movie?”

“Nope.” Yahaba smiles. It definitely _is_ another awful movie, but it was made in the 2000s. Now it’s even cheesier _and_ awfully made. He’ll love it.

Ennoshita sighs once again, a fond smile gracing his features. They walk back to the nearby supermarket in comfortable silence.

-_-_-

Mei-chan’s lesson went by in a flash, surprisingly. She’s such a sweetheart even though she definitely could move on to a better teacher. She’s old enough to make her own decisions, she said, so she’ll be staying a bit longer.

Which is fine by him. He has an excuse for a day job and something to complain about with his roommate. It really is a win-win situation.

A buzzing from inside his bag calls for his attention as he passes off the studio to Watari and Nishinoya, their newest trainer. He specialized in gymnastics before transferring over to their division.

“You better get that, Shigeru!” Nishinoya shouts out, startling him. 

He’s been in the program for about a year now, so ‘new’ might be a stretch. And he’s been friends with Watari longer than he has.

“I will, I will. Have fun, guys!” Yahaba waves them goodbye before stepping out of the building. Pulling his phone out of his bag, he answers without checking the number, shoving it between his right ear and shoulder. He shuffles through his bag for his apartment keys. 

“Hello?”

“ _Yahaba-kun!_ ”

He flinches at the loud sound, almost dropping his phone. “Miya? What the fuck, how did you get this number? I don’t remember giving-”

“ _Woah, woah, woah. That’s way too many questions, calm down. I’m calling through the Litterbox landline._ ”

Not that stupid name again. Yahaba picks up his phone and huffs. “Why? Where’s Akaashi?”

“ _Wow, I’m heart-broken. You’d rather it be Akaashi-kun than me?_ ” 

Yahaba can practically hear him pout from his voice. Rolling his eyes, Yahaba makes his way down to his apartment, choosing to find the key when he gets there. “Yes. And because it’s usually Akaashi who calls me about these things.”

“ _Oh, Akaashi’s already in the meeting room, setting things up._ ”

He takes a deep breath of the cool air and sighs dramatically. “Is it another update on The Black Cobra?”

“ _Yeah, and something about ya too. That’s what he told me, at least._ ”

Yahaba blinks at his phone as if Atsumu’s face was on screen. It wasn’t— Atsumu’s on a landline— but something tells him that that bastard’s messing with him. He crosses the street, holding his other hand up at a stopped car. “Yeah?”

“ _Yup. He was talking to someone on the phone in the room before I walked in. Just get here soon. Oikawa and Kuroo are coming in a few minutes, so do what ya must._ ”

Yahaba nods, then realizes that the other can’t see him. “Okay. I’ll be there in 5?”

“ _Sure. Bye bye, Yahaba-kun~_ ”

As he pushes open the entrance to his building, Yahaba shouts into the speaker, “I’m older than you!” but the sound of ‘Call ending’ beeps back mockingly.

He glares at his phone. “You bitch.”

A cough interrupts his glaring contest with his phone. 

He hastily bows and apologizes to the older woman. 

-_-_-

Yahaba arrives at Kozume’s mansion about 17 minutes later than he said he would. He temporarily forgot he was supposed to be there, so once he got back to his apartment, he went to take a shower. He barely feels the very icy water when it literally hits him: he has a meeting to go to. In record-breaking time, he changes into a pale blue shirt and black jeans, a pair of matching black flats, and a silver chain to finish the look before he books it towards the mansion. 

He softly raps on the meeting room door to catch his breath before opening it slightly. Akaashi and Oikawa are in the front of the room, the rest of the team sitting around the large meeting table. As Oikawa continues his not-so-brief opening, Akaashi beckons Yahaba to sit beside Kageyama, their youngest recruit. 

So many young people, it’s making Yahaba feel old.

Kageyama was brought in by Sugawara-san, actually. Usually, it was Oikawa who brought in new members, but Suga simply said, ‘you owe me a favor’ and Oikawa reluctantly accepted the boy into their group.

In any case, Yahaba gave a short nod to Kageyama, which he returned before focusing back on their leader.

Oikawa crosses his arms, glancing down at a hologram list in front of him every so often. “Akaashi and Kuroo have been working since last night on the main details of The Black Cobra’s new machines, specifically their largest and most obnoxious drone in Japan. It has ever extendable arms that are faster and more precise with their hits, which ended up injuring Sparrow and Foxbane.”

“And almost killing Galaxy,” Shirabu interrupts, frowning at the table.

The room goes silent.

It was an extremely close call. Yahaba only learned how dire the situation was when he actually saw Oikawa at the underground parking lot. He bled everywhere and sometimes, Yahaba would have to remove stained shards of glass stuck inside him. Yahaba had amazing healing powers that can even heal broken bones, but still, it took a long time to even get Oikawa to be in decent condition.

Their leader coughs. “Why, yes,” Oikawa smiles sadly. “The drone almost killed me. But, Foxbane did a marvelous job distracting the drone, only receiving a few blunt hits alone while Sparrow brought me someplace safer. Great teamwork, guys!”

A few soft claps commemorate their work, Yahaba included. Of course, all of them were still on edge about yesterday. It almost seemed like a miracle when Galaxy and Sparrow, and later Foxbane, came back, full force, to drive away the drone from the city. 

“And of course, how can I forget my precious kouhai, Yahaba! Thank you for healing all three of us right away. This may have been your first mission on the field, but your work was just as important as ours, if not more. We literally couldn’t have done this without you.”

A louder clap and a few cheers from the members, especially Kuroo and Suga who were laughing quietly between themselves, direct to Yahaba. It’s not like he didn’t like to be praised, it was just that Yahaba never really knows what to do with it. He decides to smile back and clap along, which gets another round of laughing from the duo and Moniwa-san. 

“You’ve been training for a long time and doing extremely well in the past few months. You’ve become a valuable member of the on-field crew. So, with the decision of Kuroo, Sugawara, and I, you’ll now be able to get alerts from Akaashi to participate in missions. Congrats!”

His chest squeezes with pride as he stands to bow in thanks. This is it. He made it. “Thank you, Oikawa-san! A-and Kuroo-san and Sugawara-san! I won’t let you down!”

Suga and Kuroo glance at each other. “We know you won’t.”

With a final smile, Oikawa nods at Akaashi, who raises a hand, stopping the chatter. As Akaashi switches places with Oikawa, Kuroo pats the chair next to him. Oikawa’s smile drops a little before bouncing back at the other man as he sits down. 

“Congrats again, Yahaba-san,” Akaashi nods his head at Yahaba. “Now, to the main event. The Black Cobra’s _Terror Titan_ , their strongest and most advanced drone yet.”

-_-_-

When they have an all members meeting, it can end one of two ways. Everyone understands the precautions and leaves peacefully or someone (coughcough _Oikawa_ coughcough) ends up slamming the door and everyone leaves even more on edge than they were before going into the already urgent meeting.

Today was the second option. Except, it wasn’t Oikawa who slammed the door. 

Kuroo pushes his chair back, knocking it down. “ _Sugawara-!_ ”

The door shuts with a _bang_ , the echo ringing into all the members' ears. Yahaba’s pretty sure he isn’t the only one who flinched at the force. Even without superstrength, the room seemed to shake. Just an angry Suga-san is a worry for most, if not all of them. Of course, he can be playfully angry at people sometimes, but him being actually mad at something. It’s kinda scary.

Kuroo rubs his eyes with a hand as Semi picks up his chair. He pats Kuroo’s shoulder as their second in command sinks into his seat.

When Yahaba glances around the room, the rest of his coworkers have their heads down or looking sadly at Kuroo. Even Kozume, who hasn’t touched a single piece of tech since Akaashi started talking about their plan, stared openly at his best friend.

The plan. Kenma and Akaashi, with oversight by Kuroo, have been working non-stop on creating the ultimate weapon to stop The Black Cobra’s drones. They would have to amp up the power for the newest one, but it hasn’t been tested yet. What probably upset Suga-san was the part where someone has to man it. From inside. You can probably guess who volunteered to try it in the next major battle. 

Suga wasn’t as up to date about the secret project and seemed even more upset than Oikawa, but that might be because he already knew about it and got over it. Yahaba remembers a period of time when Kuroo and Oikawa were avoiding each other before slowly becoming friends again. 

Suga argued that it was too dangerous to use it, that Kuroo could possibly cease after hearing the risks and complications that could happen. Yahaba got the unfortunate spotlight on himself for a brief moment as Oikawa points out that he could heal Kuroo into tip-top shape in a matter of hours. Which, one, is an exaggeration, Oikawa must still be sore from all the healing Yahaba had to do and two, it took two and a half hours to even get Oikawa to stand up again. That’s why he had to heal Shirabu first so that he could help Miya. He may be a miracle worker, but this kind of situation needs more than just a miracle.

Their argument lasted a few minutes until Sugawara shook with rage and stomped out the room. The plants decorating the corners shook violently for a few moments before drooping down completely. 

After a few quiet moments, Oikawa stands up, the scratching of the chair on the tile floor catching their attention. “Meeting dismissed. We’ll talk more in-depth about everyone’s role at a later date.” Chairs squeak as members start to leave. “And congrats one more time to Yahaba for getting on the field!”

Yahaba waves at Oikawa as he files behind Akaashi out the door, leaving their leader, Kuroo, and Moniwa in the room. 

Sighing, Yahaba pulls out his phone and stares at the five notifications on his phone from Watari. He presses on his phone to extend the thread when he feels a hand on his shoulder.

He glances behind him, a tense smirk filling his view. 

“Hey, ya got a minute to spare?”

-_-_-

The soft, autumn breeze brushes against Yahaba’s face. The leaves below softly crinkle with each other as Miya pops open the balcony door with two bowls in his hands. There are two chairs behind them, but they opt to lean onto the metal railing instead.

The silence that falls between them as they eat their lunch together doesn’t feel tense, just uneasy. Miya usually brings more energy to the battle, almost as much as Oikawa. These quiet moments are rare, but from what Yahaba’s heard and experienced once before, both parties usually leave content and with new insights.

“Hey,” Miya nods, breaking the silence. “Congrats again for getting promoted. How do ya feel?”

Yahaba huffs, pushing around his rice with his chopsticks. “Honestly, pretty excited. Obviously, I’m nervous, but I think it was about time.”

“Oh, totally! We’ve gotten used to a few of yer healing seshes after battles, but now we’ll be able ta just call and beckon for yer service,” Miya grins, taking another bite of his lunch.

Yahaba squints at him. “That’s a disgusting way to phrase what I do.”

“Eh,” Miya shrugs, “I’m not the best with words sometimes.”

“Sometimes?” Yahaba mutters to himself. The midday heat isn’t as harsh as previous days and the clouds were thick enough to shade them when they passed by.

They finish their lunch in silence once more, Miya finishing first and throwing his bowl in the automatic trash disposal in his room. He waits patiently for Yahaba, staring at the streets leading uptown. The road isn’t that busy, but still, cars pass by more often on this side than on the other sides of Kozume’s mansion.

Yahaba swallows the last bit of his meal and nods to his companion. Wordlessly, he takes the empty bowl and throws it away in the same fashion.

“Why did you take the room with the busiest roads? Don’t the car noises get annoying?” Yahaba asks as Miya leans forward on the railing.

“The sound is comforting,” Miya smiles. But, like, genuinely. He tilts his head on his knuckles. “Plus, it’s the closest I can get in the mansion to the city. ‘Samu’s been sus of me ever since I got this gig and its perks. Had to sneak out fer an entire year before I told him I was movin’ out.”

Yahaba briefly remembers Miya’s twin who also came to the summer festival. He’d been invited secondhand by Atsumu and seemed pretty quiet. He and Ennoshita connected pretty well, though he stuck by his twin’s side for most of the night. 

“You both seem pretty close,” Yahaba notes.

“Kinda,” Miya shrugs. He doesn’t elaborate and continues on. “He’s still hot on my trail and, like I said, I’m not the best with words. It’s annoyin’, keepin’ a secret from yer sibling.”

“Eh,” Yahaba shrugs, mocking Miya’s movement from earlier. “I can kind of relate.”

The other man nods in solidarity, ending the conversation. It was like this before too, when Yahaba first interacted with Miya. Straight to the point without adding too much fluff or revealing too much. Short conversations. It’s kind of a relief, the short silences, especially after such a heavy discussion they had not even an hour ago.

“Oh!” Miya snaps his fingers, straightening a little. “Hey, who did ya talk to yesterday?”

Yahaba’s mind flashes to a certain blond and he blinks. “What?”

“Mingle, I think were my words. ‘Cause Shirabu-kun was lookin’ at you funny the whole meeting.”

“I didn’t ‘mingle’ with anyone after yesterday. I went home to sleep.” Yahaba rolls his eyes. Not a complete lie on his part. “And wasn’t _everyone_ looking at me weird after hearing I healed Oikawa-san to ‘top condition’? Which, by the way, isn’t exactly true.”

“Mmm,” Miya nods, his finger tapping on his chin. “I guess you can say that. And yeah, yer not completely wrong about that ‘top condition’ statement. Not everyone’s gotten healed by ya, so they’d never know.”

“How are you feeling, by the way?” Yahaba asks, elbowing Miya’s side. He flinches away slightly. 

He rubs his side, grimacing. “Ugh, I feel sore. I’ll probably be better by tonight, though.”

“Probably.”

Atsumu huffs out a laugh and sighs. “I should totally interview you.”

Yahaba glances down at him. “Interview me for what?”

“Oh, did Akaashi not tell you? I got a job as a photographer for a newspaper in the city.”

Yahaba’s eyes widen. “Really? W-what newspaper company?”

Atsumu straightens fully to his height and props his hands on his hips. “MSBY News.”

Yahaba deflates. Or maybe relaxes in relief. He’s not really sure how he feels. “MSBY News?”

“It’s pretty new, now that I think about it,” Miya itches his cheek, brows furrowing. “They only opened up, like five years ago? I got hired last year.”

Yahaba nods. “Oh, uh, congrats?”

“Thanks. It’s awesome, taking pictures for a living. I even got promoted to their superhero department-” Yahaba clenches his jaw at that, “- because of how dynamic my photos were! It’s like livin’ a double life, Yahaba-kun.”

Yahaba frowns. “I’m older than you.”

Miya breathes in through his teeth. “Ya know, it doesn’t really feel like ya are.” 

Yahaba raises a finger to argue that he definitely should feel like he’s older, but Atsumu turns and spins around in a circle, flopping onto a deck chair with flair. The blond sighs, relaxing his face into a smile, and crosses his ankles. Yahaba stares flatly at him before deciding not to waste his energy.

Instead, he sighs and drops his chin on the palm of his hand, staring at the buildings of the city. 

Getting a temp job, or at least Yahaba thinks the newspaper was a temp job, in the city was probably the safest bet to protect their actual jobs and identities. Newspapers were probably pretty flexible with scheduling if Miya has this much time to lounge about. 

Does Kyoutani have this kind of time? He and Miya have the same job, so maybe? Why doesn’t he just have shorter lessons in the afternoon? Then maybe Yahaba wouldn’t have to deal with him and all the weird feelings going on in his brain. Does he even want that though?

“Hey, you know you think so fucking loud?”

Yahaba jumps and spins around. Miya’s still laying back on the deck chair, eyes closed. “What?” Yahaba snaps.

Atsumu sighs. “Ya don’t even _say_ anything and I can still feel all yer crowded thoughts.”

“Oh,” Yahaba says, scratching the back of his neck. “Well, you using normal dialect for once freaked me out.”

“What does that hafta do with what I’m sayin’? What’s on yer mind, Yahaba-kun.”

 _He didn’t even give me time to answer_ , Yahaba thinks to himself as he rolls his eyes. “Nothing important. I mean, you got the job at MSBY to cover your actual job right? Like a temp job?”

“Psh, _no_ ,” Atsumu says, pushing himself off the chair and stretching up. “I _wanted_ to join MSBY. Always wanted to be a photographer. At least now I can get a bit of cash and some friends with it.”

The words spill out without any thought. “You have friends?”

Atsumu stares at him with a flat expression, lips pursed. “Yes, Yahaba. I have friends.”

“Right~” Yahaba slurs out, leaning back on the railing. “I’m kidding. I’m sure you have plenty of friends who love you ever so dearly.”

“Ya say yer kiddin’, but yer tone says otherwise.”

“Fine. I’m half kidding,” Yahaba grins. He straightens up and takes out his phone, checking the time. 

“Ya gotta go soon?” Miya asks, now standing beside him to look at the clock. 

Yahaba shrugs. “No, I’m free for the rest of the day. I’m already recording my show anyway.”

“Nice, nice,” Miya says in an American accent, bumping his elbow to his. “Do ya still wanna do that interview? ‘Cause now that I think about it, nobody’s said anything about how we all healed up in time to finish the fight. Just speculation.”

“We can always wait for another battle. Maybe I’ll do some fighting this time.”

Miya backs up and raises an eyebrow. “You? Fighting?”

Yahaba squints at him. “I’m? An athletic trainer? And also have some super strength?”

“Oh.”

Yahaba rolls his eyes and checks his emails. A force of habit. Maybe he should check what Watari was texting him earlier about? He decides to turn off his phone.

“Well, it’ll be interesting to see how ya handle their minions and bots. And maybe then you’ll get your ‘who’s this strange figure that helped out the heroes’ articles and you’ll be famous for a bit.”

“Who knows?” Yahaba shrugs. He kinda does want that, the mysterious hero fame. Maybe Kyoutani can be the first to write about him. Or take pictures. He should ask what he does at his work, shouldn’t he.

“Only time will tell, I suppose,” Miya sighs, placing a hand on Yahaba’s shoulder. He leads the two of them out of his room. “Have fun watchin’ yer show, Yahaba-kun.”

“Definitely better than watching you pretend to sunbathe.”

Miya shrugs, his hand holding the door open. “It’s a good pastime. You should try it sometime.”

Yahaba deadpans. “I’ll just burn up.” 

He laughs, flicking his hand in a shooing motion. “Yeah, yeah, get outta here. I have ta meet ‘Samu in ten minutes, hella forgot about that,” Atsumu calls out, muttering the last part.

Yahaba starts walking down the hall, waving his hand while he takes out his phone once more. “Good luck.”

“I’ll be fine without it!” 

-_-_-

The wind starts to pick up a little bit after Yahaba leaves the mansion. At least he brought a scarf along this time. 

Like Yahaba said earlier, he doesn’t really have anywhere to be. 

Watari’s texts were just a heads up that he won’t be at the apartment until really late and to not wait up for him for dinner. Suspicious.

Well, he could probably pass by the studio and dual teach with Nishinoya and his twin students or now Yuma-san, Watari’s probably having lunch now, since Thursdays are usually the busiest. 

Instead, he walks by it, still holding his phone, open to a certain someone’s number.

He shouldn’t be embarrassed. Kyoutani was _required_ to give his phone number to his trainer. They regularly chat about advice on meal prep or his lifestyle choices with their usual remarks that can be twice as brutal. It just felt wrong to ask out of the blue. Besides, if it wasn’t for his reminders, it was usually Kyoutani who would text a question first. 

Yahaba glares at their recent message thread.

-

[Today 8:00 AM]

 _Yahaba_ : _When did you go to sleep last night?_ (A usual text he sends in the morning)

 _Kyouken_ : _Can I lie?_

(Oikawa somehow managed to swipe Yahaba’s phone and change all his contact names a few months ago. His was the only one that didn’t really change, except for a simple nickname. It used to be his full name)

 _Yahaba_ : _Are you going to ask that every day?_

[Today 8:21 AM]

 _Kyouken_ : _3 am_

 _Yahaba_ : _What happened to you for 20 minutes??_

 _Kyouken_ : _Fell asleep._

 _Yahaba_ : _…_

 _Kyouken_ : [read]

-

Yahaba sighs in grief. This is impossible. 

“I shouldn’t text him.”

“Text who?”

Yahaba jerks at his sudden companion. 

Sporting his red beanie and obnoxiously yellow bomber jacket was none other than Terushima Yuuji. Ironic how he looks exactly like his character in and out of Among Us.

His face held some surprise before he relaxed into a grin. “Don’t tell me you didn’t notice me. You even said ‘Hi’ back.”

Yahaba clicks his phone off and shoves it in his pocket, glancing at the building signs as they pass by. _Another one? Isn’t two blonds enough?!_ “I did? I can’t remember.”

“So why can’t you text him?”

Yahaba grips his phone tighter. “It doesn’t matter.”

The shorter man snorts and elbows his side. “If it’s you, it probably does.”

For his reputation as the “party guy”, Terushima’s remarkably perceptive. One of the main reasons why he’s really the glue for their friend group. You’d think it would be Ennoshita, but he’d just smack you upside for calling him glue.

Yahaba sighs as the stoplight turns red on his street. “You’re not gonna leave until I tell you, aren’t you.”

Terushima shakes his head and smiles. “Nope,” he says with a pop.

Yahaba waits for the light to turn green and shrugs his shoulders to cover his ears. They continue walking up to his apartment complex and pause at a nearby tree. 

Terushima raises an eyebrow, trying to contain a grin. “All of this silence is making me think you either murdered his friend or like this person.”

Yahaba scoffs at that last part. Him? Like Kyoutani?

“ _What?!_ You like someone?!”

Yahaba glances at Terushima. His mouth was dropped in gape, disbelieving. Did he say that out loud again? Yahaba shakes his head. “No? I don’t like anyone. What are you talking about?”

The blond covers his mouth, stage-whispering, “Woah, denial.”

Yahaba shoves his friend and glares at him. “I’m _not_ in denial. I-”

“Woah, in denial of his denial,” Terushima laughs into his hand.

Yahaba throws his hand in the air. “He’s my trainee!”

Terushima’s jaw drops, eyes widening. “Woah, in denial of his denial for his student. Wait, isn’t that, like pedophilia?”

Yahaba slaps his own forehead and drags his hand down his face. “He’s the _same age_ as me!”

Terushima’s face scrunches into thinking mode, his fingers on his chin. “So he’s your age _and_ your student? And you can’t text him because he’s your student and you like him.”

Yahaba pinches Terushima’s arm. “I _do not_ like him.”

“Ow, ow! Okay, you _don’t_ like him,” Terushima rolls his eyes, rubbing his arm. “So, what were you gonna text him?”

“I was, um," Yahaba fumbles eloquently. Being asked on the spot doesn't really give him time to think. "Gonna tell? No, ask. Ask about his job."

Yup.

The blond crosses his arms, pursing his lips. “His job? What, are you gonna give him cupcakes on his birthday at work or something?”

“No,” Yahaba says, straightening his back. “I’m not going to give him anything. He mentioned his job before but he’s always late for sessions. I’m just trying to get closure on what’s keeping him from coming.”

That should be a good enough reason. Just two people talking about their careers. There’s no underlying reason why he’s asking his trainee who also works at a newspaper company if he writes or takes pictures of superheroes. 

Terushima squints at him, walking up to and straightening to his full height. “Suspicious.”

Then he relaxes his stance and shrugs his shoulders, sauntering back in the direction they came in. “Well, tell me when you get the courage to text your man. Or Ennoshita, he usually keeps me updated.”

Yahaba shouts at him, “He’s not my man!”

Terushima waves and turns at the corner, “Denial!”

“Ugh,” Yahaba groans. He glares at the spot the blond disappeared to. 

He’s not in denial. There’s nothing to be “in denial” about. Besides, even if he was (and he isn't), Kyoutani wouldn’t even bat an eye at it, that dense fucker. You could show him an image of a couple and he'd say that they were best friends or something.

 _Whatever_ , Yahaba rolls his eyes, finally escaping the chilly autumn wind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah, uh i don't really know what this is, but i plan on seeing it to the end. hopefully it all makes sense. 
> 
> im not sorry for adding in references to Among Us, its cute and its quarantine, deal with it B|  
> 
> 
> another thing: im posting this before season 4, second cour comes out. i am afraid. future LG, tell me how it goes.
> 
> future lg: ITS GOOD. YOU HAD GOOSEBUMPS FOR HOURS. its so good :')


	2. These last few weeks have been exhausting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yahaba focuses too much on the little things and forgets the big picture. If that makes sense.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it probably doesn't but that's okay, *I* had fun writing this chapter. 
> 
> *Previous chap title: Our highs and our lows
> 
> enjoy!

A few days pass and he still hasn’t asked Kyoutani if he writes or takes pictures. 

Sure, he’s had some sessions with him where he could’ve just asked, but all of those days were suffocatingly quiet, in terms of actual conversation.

It probably doesn’t matter anyways, since the whole reason he wanted to ask in the first place was that he was going to debut in an actual fight. But there hasn’t been a fight since the Terror Titan stormed the city and almost killed Galaxy, which, by the way, was the only news and gossip people have been talking about since then. All the theories and clickbait and rumors are starting to give him a headache.

Even Watari’s attempts at bringing up the news are starting to get old.

“Do you think Galaxy has a clone machine?”

Yahaba drops his head in his palms. “No, I don’t think Galaxy has a clone machine.”

“You don’t _think_ about anything except yourself.”

Yahaba peaks through his fingers at Watari, who’s crossing his arms and glaring at him. “What?”

“You always dismiss all of the Galaxy, Foxbane, even Sparrow theories.”

Yahaba takes a swig of cheap beer they bought a few months ago and plops it on their kitchen counter. “It’s the _only_ thing people talk about! Can’t we at least move on? That’s how it usually goes with these things.”

“Shigeru,” Watari sighs, placing his phone face down. “Galaxy almost _died_ . _Died!_ ”

Yahaba throws his hands in the air. “I know!” _I was there._ _It’s just as painful hearing it said to him than experiencing it first hand._

“Then he just comes flying back with Sparrow,” Watari zooms his arm across his space, “all healed up and kicking robot ass!”

“You’ve told me this a thousand times, Shinji.”

“And I’m going to say it a thousand times more!” 

Yahaba groans and drops his face on the counter, grabbing his bottle just to hold onto. He needs to get out more. When was the last time he went on a date? Like… oh! Diana! Um, in spring! 

And it’s already fall.

Watari continues, “And this all happened _last week_ , Shigeru. _Last week!_ We can’t just move on, there’s gotta be _some_ explanation on how he healed that fast.”

 _It’s because of_ **_me_ ** _,_ Yahaba thinks matter-of-factly, smiling to himself. Hearing about Oikawa was rough, but when they started talking about how he came back better made Yahaba a little light-headed. _Oh the things you’ll never know, Watari_.

Watari gasps and shakes Yahaba’s shoulder, causing him to look up. “What if Galaxy has healing powers too!”

Yahaba straightens up and twirls his bottle. “Then why hasn’t he healed during other major battles?”

“Um… “ Watari blinks at him, “Huh. He should have. Definitely would’ve made battles easier for him.”

“Exactly,” Yahaba nods, slowly sipping the last bit of his beer. “Ugh, I’m tired. You know there are even crazier theories of Galaxy bringing in another version of himself from another reality? It’s ridiculous.”

“Oh yeah, those ones are a bit far off, but I don’t know. Maybe there’s another superhero who’s, like, a doctor or cleric or something,” Watari laughs. 

Now this is Yahaba’s favorite theory. You can probably guess why.

It involved the possibility of his hero persona _existing_. And oh, how right they are. 

“Yeah, or something,” Yahaba laughs along, tapping his empty bottle to Watari’s half finished one on a chill, Saturday night.

-_-_-

Come Monday, something changes. 

The overall vibe of the studio shifts when Kyoutani arrives on time. He still looks the same: brutish and puffed out, but he doesn’t look mad. He actually seems to be glowing. 

Yahaba doesn’t say anything on this, though he probably could have if this was Kyoutani’s good mood. Kyoutani followed his words willingly with only a few complaints (which was fine, it’s part of the job) and when they take a break halfway, the silence feels comfortable. Nicer than it’s been in days.

“You put your pinky out when you drink your sports bottle.”

Yahaba blinks down at his sports bottle then at Kyoutani. “So?”

“Nothing,” Kyoutani shrugs, lifting his drink to his mouth. “Just an observation.”

Yahaba raises an eyebrow. “What, you’re not going to ask me why I do it?”

Kyoutani gulps down a bit of his drink, wiping his mouth with his arm. “I have a small suspicion.”

“Oh? Indulge me?” 

“Hmm…” 

Kyoutani is actually talking to him. An _actual_ conversation. Aren’t Monday’s supposed to be the worst? Wait. No negative thoughts. Maybe Yahaba can ask Kyoutani if he takes pictures for the newspaper today. He seems to be talkative.

Kyoutani rubs his chin and sighs. “You wondered why your mother put her finger out when drinking out of things and looked it up on the internet? Maybe you have an older sister who watched princess movies and you watched them _and_ the extras? You had an old friend or ex who used to do it and you couldn’t break the habit?”

Well.

That’s… definitely talking alright.

Yahaba narrows his eyes at his trainee. “Why did you list so many? It was the second one, too, you bastard. Also, how would you even know this if it didn’t happen to you?”

Kyoutani furrows his already deep brows. “I don’t have an older sister and my mother didn’t do that.”

“So an ex?”

“... No.”

Yahaba snaps his fingers. “You hesitated.”

“No I didn’t,” Kyoutani grunts as he caps his drink and slams it into his bag. He makes his way back to the artificial field. “I don’t even put my pinkie out, the fuck are you talking about.”

Damn. He shouldn’t have brought that up. Nobody wants to bring up their exes, what the hell? A fleeting thought of a girl dating a guy like Kyoutani crosses Yahaba’s mind as he places his bottle next to his bag. _Someone wanted to date Kyoutani?_

… 

Wait, he forgot to ask about Kyoutani’s job again. Dammit.

Sighing, Yahaba jogs back on the field, muttering out, “If you say so.”

-_-_-

He’s definitely going to ask today. Wednesday. About his job. After he grabs groceries for Watari and the apartment, that is. His training session isn’t until a lot later and Yahaba offered to pick up some food for the week while Watari was… Where was Watari going anyway?

“I should’ve asked him where he was going,” Yahaba mutters to himself as he scans the ramen aisle. There’s already ten boxes of instant ramen and a box of strawberry Pocky for himself in his basket. Maybe he should move onto the vegetables so he doesn’t look like a college student.

As soon as he turns the other way, his phone starts to vibrate violently in his jacket pocket, almost causing him to drop his basket. He raises his hand in apology to the other patrons in the store as he fumbles for his phone to turn it off. 

When he finally takes it out, it stops shaking and the only thing on the screen is a message that says _Please answer your phone, Yahaba-san._

Yahaba turns around and flickers his gaze at the others around him, a shiver spiking up his spine. Is someone watching him?

Then his phone vibrates quietly in his hand (how does it do that), displaying a number Yahaba recognizes and one green button. 

He presses answer and raises his phone up to his ear. 

“Yahaba-san, Oikawa-san has requested you for your help. Please head to the mansion immediately.”

Yahaba blinks at his phone and nods, quickly walking down the aisle in the other direction. “Oh, okay. I’ll be there in ten minutes, I can probably grab a few more things-”

“No, you are being called onto the field, Yahaba-san.”

Yahaba stops in his tracks. 

Oikawa. Help. Called. Field. 

“Yahaba-san? You need to hurry.”

“Huh? Oh, right.” He shakes his head and ends the call. He calmly walks up to a worker, giving his basket to her and asking her to put them away. He shows her his empty pockets, explaining, “I have a meeting to go to.” The worker nods, confused, but that’s enough for Yahaba as he sprints out of the market and towards the mansion.

As he’s running, another ring echoes from his phone. He immediately picks up.

“Hey Shigeru, I actually forgot to ask- wait why are you running?”

“What?” Yahaba huffs. “What did you forget?”

“Oh, um, can you buy some soy sauce, we ran out. Why are you running?”

“Um,” Yahaba stops at a stoplight to catch his breath. He looks behind him and sees he’s already run a decent amount, maybe eight blocks from the store. “I’ll pick some up later, I forgot I had a meeting with Oikawa-san, you remember him? In like, five minutes.”

“Oh, okay. That’s all I needed for dinner tonight, but I guess I can wait?”

“Okay, bye, Shinji,” Yahaba says as the stoplight turns green. 

“Hey, wai-” He ends the call and pockets his phone, jogging the rest of the way to the outskirts of the city.

-_-_-

Except when Yahaba gets there, he has no idea where the fast way in is. He’s used it before, like two years ago when Kozume explained the thing _once_. 

“Where was it again?” Yahaba frowns as he pushes leaves to the side, trying to find the entrance. He finally hits something flat and feels around for a button (he thinks it’s a button. or was it a lever?) 

It’s definitely a button when he presses on it, the leaves suddenly clearing away as a door slides open. Falling forward, he almost slams his head on the back wall but catches himself with his already outstretched hand. He shoots up and rubs his eyes, already feeling light headed from everything going on. 

_Is this what Shirabu felt like when he first started?_ he thinks as he walks into the loopevator (wonderfully named by Miya) and stares down the buttons on the side. There are symbols beside each of them, really, it should’ve been easy to figure out which one was his room.

But instead, he ends up in the main kitchen, wrong room (he thinks is Akaashi’s with how little there was), and a zoo? A loud roar shakes the room as Yahaba rapidly presses on the next button, already sweating from all his panic.

The loopevator slowly closes and brings him to their next spot, his room. He sighs in relief, checking which button he pressed. Three grey stars bunched up together in different sizes. He glances back to his room again. 

Shrugging, he walks out of the loopevator, its door closing softly and disappearing. “You’d think the cluster of stars would be a galaxy,” he smiles to himself as he grabs his suit out of its case. A case.

A case?

He blinks down at his suit.

He last put it on his desk chair before leaving.

 _Somebody must’ve put it back, or something_ , Yahaba shrugs off, quickly changing into his suit.

With one last sassy kick and wink at himself in the mirror, Yahaba calls back the loopevator and clicks the one button he _does_ remember, the Eject to Location button.

He braces himself as the countdown goes off, since he hasn’t actually _used_ the Eject to Location button before and he doesn’t really have a fast way to travel (he could probably go on all day complaining about how everyone either has superspeed or flight but he won’t for the sake of his audience).

When the counter reaches one, a gust of compacted air launches him up and out towards the city. He screams from the sheer force he was pushed at, then remembers he’ll probably be fine when he lands, but more importantly he’ll ruin his reputation if he didn’t calm down. Unfortunately, he doesn’t get the time to catch his breath as he collides with a bird, causing his course to skew. 

As he makes contact with the ground, he folds his arms and covers his head to roll safely. Luckily, it wasn’t into a building, but his landing wasn’t the greatest. He flops on his back after three rolls.

Sighing in relief, Yahaba takes a moment to collect himself when an unbearable screech shakes the street.

“Ugh! Give me a break!” he shouts, lifting himself off the ground. He double checks his suit and nods before hearing a boy and a woman shout for each other. 

_Oh great._

Minions, as they were lovingly called, were these ugly little things that stood half a building tall and almost looked human if you ignored the fact that they had a nose and mouth of a snake and were a hundred times beefier. And dark green. 

Back to the boy and woman, apparently, that’s her kid, being picked up by a smaller minion, the boy screaming and pounding his hands on top of the minion’s large one.

He runs up to the woman, pulling her behind him with an arm. Without looking at her, he instructs, “Miss, stay back.”

He can feel her entire body nodding as she releases his arm.

 _Okay,_ Yahaba tells himself, _time to be a hero. Or something._

In three steps, he launches himself at the minion, feet first into its chest. It falls on its back, another shriek that would’ve killed his ears if it weren’t for Akaashi’s suit. Instead, the child cries back, flailing his arms.

Using the momentum from his body weight, Yahaba punches down on the minion’s nose, causing it to lack its claw grip. In one swift motion, Yahaba pries its claws open and heaves the boy onto his shoulder. The minion flails in pain, almost pushing Yahaba off balance. 

The child grips onto his neck and his back, tears waterfalling down his suit. Right. Kids, not teens. Definitely not the same thing.

“Hold on tight,” Yahaba says for extra measure as he jumps down onto the minion’s middle and flings backwards. 

But something gets caught. Yahaba glances down; The boy’s pocket in his shorts. The minion’s claws scrape down the length of the boy’s right thigh and calf, causing him to scream even more into Yahaba’s back. 

He lands with both feet on the ground, a steadying hand beside him and his other hand holding the boy’s lower back. 

When he looks up at the minion, it disintegrates, a small wave of energy bouncing off it. All that’s left is ashes.

He carefully lifts the boy off his shoulder and onto the ground, rubbing his back.

“Hey, stop crying. You’ll be alright,” he whispers nervously, lifting his right leg and removing gunk out of the kid’s wound. Kids are wild cards these days. Hopefully, this one isn’t a tantrum child.

The mother shouts the boy’s name from behind him, dropping to her knees when she sees his wound. She covers her mouth with her hands, her breaths quickening.

Wiping a tear off the boy's face, he calmly tells the mother, “I’ll heal your son. Please stop crying.” He’s had enough of dealing with that (cougcough _Watari and Oikawa_ coughcough).

He quickly heals up the scratch until it’s only a scar (which was surprisingly quick, in terms of how long it usually takes. Is it because they’re still growing? Kids are weird) and helps both of them to their feet.

Another unexpected thing: the mother pulls him down for a hug. She cries more thanks before he pries her off of him. 

“No, thank _you_ for trusting me,” he says, sweetly, holding onto her hand with both of his. “Now, go and find a safer place, please.” With a final nod, Yahaba slams his feet into the ground, launching himself at a nearby building and climbing the rest of the way to the roof.

“Hey, Yahaba-kun! Perfect timing!”

Yahaba groans into the wind as Foxbane lands neatly beside him from across the street. 

“It’s so nice to see ya on yer feet. Nice landing.”

Yahaba frowns. “You saw that?” 

“Had ta stop and laugh at ya,” Foxbane grins, elbowing Yahaba’s side. 

Rolling his eyes, Yahaba pushes him down and sprints towards the main fight, Foxbane trailing behind.

-_-_-

The fight went as well as you’d think but in a positive tone. 

It was mostly just him, fighting against the weaker bots and stray minions at the edge of the battle and Foxbane and Galaxy taking the spotlight. Which was fine by Yahaba, not as much pressure to make mistakes and save a few people. Of course, since he was unknown, a few, uh, most civilians pushed him away, thinking he was with the enemy or just some really dressed up robber (you wouldn’t believe the amount of effort people took to be caught by Galaxy and pretend to be one. It was kinda gross). 

He did end up getting pulled into the center of the action after a reckless save from Foxbane, Galaxy protecting them from above.

The Black Cobra’s units do eventually leave, half of them gone, and most of them in shambles or turned into dust. Galaxy and Foxbane shouted nonsense at them, Yahaba laughing loudly between them. Once the last of them escape to who knows where the three of them dip out. They don’t do it only to escape the interviews, they actually love doing those when Akaashi allows them, but this time, to preserve Yahaba’s identity.

“Keep’em on their toes,” Foxbane shrugs as they hop out.

By the time they get back to Kozume’s mansion, there’s already commotion of a mysterious hero on the news.

“But no photos.”

Yahaba turns to Akaashi. “No photos?! Not even a video on a crappy phone?”

Akaashi shakes his head, typing more into his blank keyboard (he might be a psychopath or just trying to fit his aesthetic. Yahaba’s not sure which). A website loads on the screen, and yup, there isn’t a single photo of him in the article. 

“None that I’ve seen. Only accounts from eyewitnesses. There’s a really popular one from a small boy and his mother,” he pulls up a previous tab and displays the photo of the same boy and woman from his first encounter.

“Oh yeah,” Yahaba nods. “I recognize them. They were where I first landed.”

Atsumu looks at Akaashi’s screen. “Ya mean face-planted?”

Yahaba shoves Atsumu and glares at him. “Shut up, Miya.”

The blond laughs heartily while Akaashi allows him to read the article. He slumps, “Damn. Sendai got the article first? Bokkun must’ve been in another part of the city.”

Yahaba turns quickly at the sound of the news company and grips the back of Akaashi’s chair. He takes control of the mouse and scrolls up to the author. 

Tsukishima, K. 

He squints at the screen. _Who the hell is that?_ _Does that mean he takes pictures?_

Rolling his eyes, Yahaba lets go of the mouse and stretches his arms up. He doesn’t notice Akaashi’s weird look or Atsumu’s questioning glare. 

“I’m going home,” Yahaba yawns, grabbing the last of his things when Atsumu calls out, “Hey, what about an interview, ‘mysterious vigilante’?”

Yahaba shakes his head, waving behind him. “Not today, I gotta apologise to my roommate for ditching him and his free lunch break.” 

That’s definitely a lie, Watari’s probably working right now, but he’d rather be somewhere else other than with Miya, who could probably expose him in a matter of seconds.

Atsumu shrugs and sighs. “Fine, fine. I’ll wait until you gain some actual traction, then.”

“Haha, very funny,” Yahaba deadpans, closing the door and leaving Akaashi to deal with Miya’s shit.

-_-_-

After he picks up the groceries and drops them off at the apartment, Yahaba makes his way to the studio. It’s ridiculously chilly and with the added 14 kph winds, only ends up dampening his mood. When he unlocks the front doors, he’s met with an even colder and darker interior. 

Where was Watari? Did he end his session early?

Yahaba rubs his arms as he presses on the automatic lighting system. A few lights turn on as he shakes the cold out of his body. His breath forms clouds of fog as he makes his way to the front benches, dropping his bag and taking out his water bottle. He’s already in his workout gear, so there’s no need to unlock the locker rooms. 

He prepares a few things by himself, softly playing his own music and sits on the mats when he finishes.

The first loop of his songs are played and there’s still no Kyoutani.

He checks the time. 8:47. 17 minutes late.

  
  
  


“Where are you?” Yahaba whispers at the door. 

-_-_-

Yahaba sniffs, pulling his blanket closer to him. 

An hour in the freezing studio and not even a text from Kyoutani later, Yahaba decides he can’t wait for hypothermia to kill him and quickly shuts down the studio, leaving the last bit of cleaning to the early risers. 

Currently, he’s scrolling through some newspaper articles and popular blogs, the news channel quietly filling the background. A click from the door and Watari’s keys jingling catches Yahaba’s attention.

Watari blinks at him and his set up. “What the hell?”

“Just listening to the news,” Yahaba shrugs, focusing back onto the blog post blurring in his computer. “I bet you already heard it on the way here.”

“Uh, yeah, actually,” Watari replies, placing his keys on the hooks in the pantry. He drops his bag beside the couch and sits next to Yahaba, grabbing the remote. “Why are you on the old news channel, nothing ever happens on that one. Only the weather and stuff.”

Oh. That’s probably why he’s only heard tomorrow’s predicted weather over and over again.

The TV flickers to a more recent channel. A woman speaks firmly about the image on her right. A very blurry image, but still an image of him. Or the back of him, anyway.

Foxbane was facing towards the camera standing back to back with Yahaba, Galaxy’s side profile hovering over them as he protected them from above. 

The woman smiles as she glances down at her pad. “This just in, the people of Japan have voted on a placeholder name for our mysterious hero. This isn’t set in stone, at least until our newest hero confirms their title. Now, with a total of over fifty thousand votes, the heros’ new placeholder title is-!” She points to the right of her, a word displayed in the middle of the screen.

“Synergy!” She exclaims. “The cooperation of multiple individuals that, when combined, is greater than the sum of their separate efforts. Congrats to @SNEgal23 for submitting the original name!”

“Woah,” Watari smiles, leaning forward, “That’s such a cool nickname. I hope they take it.” 

Yahaba flops back onto the couch, staring at the name. His head feels light, even though his eyes feel like they’re going to close any minute.

 _Synergy_. 

It‘s got a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?

-_-_-

[Today 8:00 AM]

 _Yahaba_ : _When did you go to sleep last night?_

[Delivered]

Yahaba stares down at his phone. He’s currently wrapped in blankets on his bed (Watari told him to move last night) in complete darkness. Well except for his phone, obviously.

And he texted Kyoutani thirty minutes ago. 

_Is he ignoring me?_ Yahaba frowns, pulling his blankets closer. He doesn’t have anywhere to go today except lunch, since Mei-chan scheduled her next session for tomorrow. Which meant he could be dual teaching with Watari and his other student, he’s not quite sure when she scheduled it. He’ll check tomorrow when his phone alerts him. Will Kyoutani even show up tomorrow? _Was it because I brought up his ex?_

“Ugh,” Yahaba mutters, “what kind of person asks a dude about their ex.”

“Hopefully someone who isn’t staring at his phone screen in the dark.”

Yahaba squints at the harsh light of the hallway, which is partially blocked by his roommate. He hisses at him for the drama of it.

Rolling his eyes, Watari walks into the room and turns on his bedside light, dropping his back onto Yahaba’s bed. He flops his arms up and across his legs, sighing. “So.”

“So.”

“Damn. That was the saddest ‘so’ I’ve ever heard.”

Yahaba flicks Watari’s forehead, causing him to flinch. Yahaba grins at him. “Shut up.”

“No,” Watari replies, rubbing his forehead. “So why are you asking about someone’s ex?”

“I don’t want a therapy session, Shinji,” Yahaba says tonelessly. He definitely doesn’t want to talk about it, even if he stayed up all night _thinking_ about it.

“It’s not therapy. It’s just a talk between two bros; a dude and his best friend,” Watari smiles, elbowing Yahaba’s knee.

“So you’re saying that I’m your best friend?”

Watari points a finger at him. “Don’t push it.”

“Okay,” Yahaba sighs. His phone dims and turns off on its own, leaving him to actually participate in this “bro session”. He rubs his eye with a hand.

“I’ll ask it again,” Watari says after a minute of silence. His hands are folded across his stomach. “Why’d you ask someone about their ex?”

“He brought it up,” Yahaba shrugs.

“Oooh, so it’s a ‘he’?” Watari nods, rubbing his chin.

“What? No, he’s not a he,” Yahaba shakes his head. “I-I mean she’s. I _meant_ she.”

Watari raises an eyebrow skeptically. “Okay? So how did _she_ react to you asking?”

 _He brushed it off._ “She brushed it off.”

“She denied it?”

“No, like…” _He did but it sounded like he didn’t?_ “She did, like she said ‘no’, but it sounded like she didn’t.”

Watari turns on his side and drops his head on his hand. “So she hesitated?”

Yahaba nods his head vigorously. That’s exactly what he told him three days ago. “She was so mad about it too, after I asked her.”

“Well, yeah,” Watari grimaces, “Not everyone likes to talk about their ex.”

“You’re the exception.”

Watari punches Yahaba’s side, causing him to curl up even more into his blanket pile. “Shut up.”

“But I’m right though?”

He receives another punch on the opposite side. Watari then sits up, leaning back on his hands, staring at the ceiling. “So why do you care?”

Yahaba rubs his side, blinking up at Watari. “Huh?”

“Like why does it matter that she’s upset? You’re not the kind of guy to care about things like that.”

Yahaba straightens up and pinches his eyebrows. “What? What do you mean I’m not the ‘kind of guy’?”

Watari slowly tilts his head to the side in a shrug, his mouth flattening. He waves his hand up and down at him, as if to say _have you seen the way you are_? “Well…”

Yahaba shoves him and laughs when he falls off the bed. He didn’t even put that much strength into it. “It doesn’t.”

“What doesn’t?” Watari glares at him, dropping his upper body at the edge of the bed.

“It doesn’t matter,” Yahaba shakes his head, shimmying off his makeshift hoodie. He can tell his hair’s all messed up when Watari snorts. “See? This ‘bro talk’ of yours was all for nothing.”

Watari blinks up at him and frowns. 

Yahaba raises an eyebrow. “What?”

Watari takes a deep breath and rolls his eyes, standing up. “Nothing. Come on, it’s 9:30. Eat some breakfast already.”

“Already?” Yahaba yawns, letting Watari unwrap him from his blanket cake. “We’ve been talking for so long.”

“No, we talked for ten minutes. You just need to look at your alarm clock more.”

And the day went on like that, Watari trying to get Yahaba out of his weird slump. His mood eventually brightens near the end of the day with distractions (that consisted of Synergy, mostly) to forget why he was stressed out in the first place.

In fact, he was so distracted, he didn't even notice a text from his phone, as it died halfway through the day.

[Today 8:00 AM]

 _Yahaba_ : _When did you go to sleep last night?_

[Today 3:28 PM]

_Kyouken: Hey_

_Kyouken: I rescheduled tomorrows lesson._

_Kyouken: I’ll be coming by in the afternoon._

[Today 9:45 PM]

_Kyouken: sorry for missing practice yesterday_

[Delivered]

-_-_-

Kyoutani looks like shit. 

He’s got heavy bags underneath his eyes and he’s glaring more than usual. His movements are slower and clumsy and Yahaba almost just wants to send him home, because he clearly needs the sleep. He’s also even more late than usual.

Which is fine by him. Yahaba owes Watari a few favors (losing on purpose to make up for yesterday) after arm wrestling with him and some matches with Watari’s other trainee, Ani. He’s a nice kid, still in secondary school like Mei-chan, who already came by for her short lesson. 

Yahaba’s been riding on the high of his first successful battle after the dump that was yesterday. One where it was planned, he showed up, he used his powers in front of other people- it’s making him feel invincible. He finally gets why Oikawa’s so obsessed with this project, with helping people like that. He saved people yesterday. He did something good. Not even a grumpy, rude, late trainee can bring his good mood down.

“You look like shit,” Yahaba tells Kyoutani helpfully, falling into the familiar routine of stretches. “Rough night?”

Kyoutani glares up at him, tired and furious, and Yahaba briefly regrets saying it in a snarky tone. Oh well. 

“Fuck off,” Kyoutani snaps, and Yahaba can’t really say he’s surprised. 

“You’re even later than usual, too,” he reminds him, sugary sweet. Like an hour. Watari stayed because he felt bad about last night too. “Why even bother showing up?” Okay, so he’s a little salty. You would be too if you were abandoned in a freezer at 9:17 at night.

“I dunno, why do you keep nagging me? I’m just fine,” Kyoutani grumbles, throwing his duffle bag on the ground.

Yahaba considers for a moment, glancing back at Watari and Ani. “Beat me in arm wrestling, and I’ll stop nagging you.”

“Why would I do that? You have, like, noodle arms, I’d just snap your bicep,” Kyoutani fires back. Yahaba snorts. Just because he looks weak doesn’t make his superstrength any less strong. He tries not to use too much for casual things like this, but it’s fun catching people off guard.

“What’s all this training for if you can’t even show for it?” Watari cuts in, perfectly timed. Yahaba startles, wondering how long he’d been listening in. 

“Watari, please, I was just-”

“Fine.”

Yahaba blinks at Kyoutani. “Fine?”

Kyoutani shrugs. “I’ll arm wrestle you.”

“After arm wrestling me?”

Yahaba glances at Watari’s trainee. “Well, you weren’t really a challenger, Ani-kun.”

The teen huffs and crosses his arms. Yahaba usually goes easy on people who look weaker and acts like he loses to stronger looking people. It makes sense, and it preserves his powers and doesn’t reveal himself.

But this time he’s not gonna hold back. As much.

Yahaba raises an eyebrow. “Are you sure you can handle me?”

Kyoutani plants his elbow on the counter and opens his palm. “I know I can.”

“Fine then,” Yahaba shrugs, gripping onto Kyoutani’s hand. “I’ll even let all your late excuses go.”

With that, Kyoutani perks up, his face scrunching. “You’re awfully confident for someone who already lost.”

Yahaba blinks at him sweetly. “Who says it’s going to be me who loses?”

“ _Alright_ , enough trash talk,” Watari says, placing a hand on both of their shoulders. “Same rules as always: No lifting your elbow off the counter, at least one foot on the ground and go only when I say Go. Yeah?”

They both nod, not losing eye contact, which is kind of thrilling for Yahaba. Kyoutani doesn’t really look at him that much, now that he thinks about it.

Watari places his hands on top of theirs and smiles. “The one who forces the other’s touch onto the counter wins.”

“We know, we know, go on with it,” Yahaba grumbles.

“Okay, okay,” Watari mutters, glaring at Yahaba “Ready? Go!”

In an instant, Yahaba slams Kyoutani’s hand back, the noise echoing into their ears. Yahaba jumps up and laughs, letting go of Kyoutani’s hand and pumping both of his into the air. “You just got _owned_! How does it feel to lose to some _noodle arms_ ,” Yahaba grins, flipping his hair and turning back to the rest of them.

All of their eyes were blown wide at him, Kyoutani rubbing his knuckles. 

Ani’s voice cracks. “ _How_ did you do that? He has twice the amount of muscle mass as you!”

“That’s not completely true,” Kyoutani mutters under his breath. “I’m probably a third stronger.”

Watari grabs onto his shoulders and shakes him. “Yeah, how did you do that? You lost to me like, half the time!” 

“Uh..” Yahaba glances at Kyoutani’s red hand. “I was saving up?”

“Woooow,” Watari rolls his eyes, letting go of the Yahaba, “I’m not worth your effort?”

“Oh come on, don’t be like that, Watari,” Yahaba calls out to him as he guides Ani back to their area. Behind his back, Watari flips him off.

Yahaba sticks his tongue out at him and crosses arms, pouting. 

“Seriously?”

Yahaba flinches at Kyoutani’s voice. He’s still rubbing his hand, but now he’s frowning at him.

“Uhhh, does it still hurt?” Yahaba asks instead, glancing down at his hand. He knows what he did was childish, but we can all afford a few childish acts some days. 

“Um,” Kyoutani slowly removes the hand that was soothing the other. The color of his knuckles were definitely darker than the last time he looked at them. Without thinking, Yahaba grabs onto his hand carefully and guides them to the first aid station. Can’t be doing his healing without a cover. 

He doesn’t notice Kyoutani tensing up when he holds onto Kyoutani’s hand and rests his other on Kyoutani’s upper back. Or when Kyoutani looks anywhere but his hand as Yahaba secretly heals and wraps it with gauze. 

-_-_-

“So, what happened to you?” 

They’ve only been training for 30 minutes and Kyoutani almost passed out twice. He looks like he’s about to fall into dreamland as he’s leaning back on the wall, cradling his hand and bottle. Kyoutani peeps an eye open. “Huh?”

“You skipped your lesson two days ago and look like you haven’t had a single night of rest! Not to mention I had to save you from crushing your other hand with a weight,” Yahaba says, counting his fingers with each reason. 

Kyoutani mutters something, lolling his head back to the wall.

“You’re muttering,” Yahaba rolls his eyes, propping a hand on his hip. “I can’t hear you. Is this about your ex?”

“ _No_. I don’t have an ex. And I have _work_ , yknow,” Kyoutani says a little louder, annoyed. He scowls for a moment before giving up and relaxing his expression. He must’ve been really exhausted.

 _Oh,_ Yahaba blinks. _At least that settles that. Why was he so pissed off?_

Yahaba crouches next to his trainee and sighs. He shouldn’t ask, right? Kyoutani will tell him if he wants to. It’s none of his business like Watari said. 

_Ew, when did I start to listen to Watari’s advice._

He watches his trainee breathe in and out, sometimes poking him when it gets too slow. Kyoutani doesn’t fight back, but he does take a big breath to wake himself up. This goes on for a while, and luckily no one's there to see it, since Watari was basically done with his session for the day by the time they had their arm wrestling matches. Speaking of arm wrestling…

“How’s your hand?” Yahaba whispers, though he doesn’t really know why. Like he said, it’s just the two of them.

“Better,” Kyoutani whispers out in reply, wiggling his injured hand for show. 

“Yknow, I probably beat you because you were tired,” Yahaba sighs, resting his cheek on his hand. “I want a rematch.”

Kyoutani raises an eyebrow, which translates to “Now?” with an extra added glare if he actually opened his eyes. 

“No, not now, obviously,” Yahaba scoffs, slapping his shoulder softly. “When you’re in top shape. I’m sending you home.”

The other man grunts, not moving from his spot. “Headache,” he says simply.

“Ugh,” Yahaba grumbles, “I can barely hear you.” And his legs are going numb from squatting. Dropping on his bottom, he scooches next to Kyoutani, stretching his legs forward. He has longer legs. Another win.

“‘m sorry.”

Yahaba looks up at Kyoutani. His eyes were barely open and now that Yahaba’s closer, he can really see his eyebags. “What kept you up? Your eyebags could probably carry luggage for a week.”

After a moment, the blond sighs. “Shut up. I already told you.”

“ _‘I have work too’_ isn’t an answer.” 

_Okay Yahaba, it’s now or never_. He crosses his ankles and rubs his nose, to, yknow, make it look like he’s just asking a casual question. “You said you worked in a newspaper. What could you possibly do for more than 24 hours at a _newspaper_ office? You could always do it in the morning.”

Kyoutani turns to him, shaking his head and glaring at him. Okay, wrong way to phrase it, but at least he’s got his attention now.

“Do..?”

Yahaba raises an eyebrow, flashing a tired smile. “Do I what?” 

Kyoutani’s mouth opens and closes sporadically, looking everywhere and gesturing his hand randomly. “H-how? _How do I explain this?_ Are you serious right now?”

 _I just want to know what you do, dude._ Yahaba laughs nervously. “Maybe?”

“ _Maybe_?” Kyoutani shrugs his shoulders.

“I don’t know,” Yahaba shrugs back, pulling his legs to his chest. “Just wondering what you do in there. You complain about that place sometimes, yknow?”

Kyoutani stares blankly at him before turning away and playing with the label of his sports drink. He could either be dropping the topic or thinking really hard about how to answer. 

It’s not until three minutes pass when Kyoutani leans his head back on the wall and mutters, rubbing his eyes with his fingers. “I’m an editor there. Sometimes I write, collect resources, interview witnesses. I do whatever I can.”

Yahaba has to lean in just to hear him (his voice might be dying), but he thinks he knows what he’s talking about. “So, you’re the words person?”

Kyoutani chuckles and shrugs. “Yeah, why not? I’m the words person.”

Wow. Yahaba pinches himself to make sure he’s not losing his mind. He pushes the lingering thought of _that’s cute_ to the back of his mind and focuses on the main point: Kyoutani is a writer. Wait. “Then why haven’t I seen your name in the articles I read? You write about the superheroes right?”

“You still remember that?” Kyoutani raises an eyebrow. 

_Uh oh_. “Um… yes? I mean, you did kind of blurt it out that one time,” Yahaba shrugs, playing it off as if he doesn’t think about that every time he meets with his team.

“Oh,” he replies helpfully. He takes a deep breath and tilts his head towards Yahaba. “Do you ever look at the bottom of the article? I kept updating it with new info until my fingers bled.”

Yahaba glances down at Kyoutani’s hands.

“Not literally,” Kyoutani punctuates with a slap to Yahaba’s shoulder. “It’s a metaphor, you idiot. I bet you were just looking at the pictures anyway.”

Yahaba frowns and drops his head on his knees. He may be right about that, but that’s because he was a little biased towards Kyoutani being a photographer. It’s not like writing isn’t interesting, it’s just boring sometimes. That’s why he only reads the paragraphs _next_ to the pictures. It gives context. Sometimes.

“You really _are_ shallow.”

Yahaba spins around and glares at Kyoutani, who’s clenching his jaw, definitely holding in a laugh. _That’s not cute or hot. shut up brain._ He scoffs, “It was late at night. My brain can’t process tiny words on a screen.”

Kyoutani shrugs, going back to his original position of leaning back, one leg propped up as an armrest. “If you say so.”

Yahaba pouts. Is his only way of talking insults? ‘ _Until my fingers bled’. Hmm._ “You must really love your job since you skipped nights of sleep over it.”

“Maybe,” he smiles, sighing. After a moment, he shifts his body that was probably going numb from sitting for so long. He plays with the wrapping around his hand. “They called the hero ‘Synergy’, y'know? I voted for that name. Glad it won.”

 _We’re talking about_ **me**? Yahaba perks up, schooling his smile to a grin. _I mean, superhero me, obviously. Same thing._ “I heard. You sound excited about it.”

Kyoutani shrugs. “Eh.”

Yahaba’s heart sinks. _Eh?_ “Eh?”

“I don’t really know that much about them. Not a lot of people do. The dude jumped into the fray and escaped just as fast. _And_ the pictures are crappy,” Kyoutani replies, bumping his elbow to his. 

Yahaba blinks at the contact. Kyoutani doesn’t look too panicked unlike Yahaba, so maybe he’s overreacting. He clears his throat. “Well, uh, from what you _do_ know, w-what do you think of him?”

Kyoutani purses his lips. “Him? I mean the best description we got was from that woman and kid, so maybe... I don’t know.” He grins before saying, “Prince Charming? That’s what I got from their description.”

 _Prince Charming_? Yahaba smiles, covering his mouth. “Prince Charming? So you _do_ watch princess movies after all.”

Kyoutani shoves him with what little energy he has (which is nothing). “I have a little sister, dumbass. The stories are half interesting at best.”

“Cinderella 2: Dreams Come True, Anastasia and the baker.”

Kyoutani points at him. “That’s the exception.”

Yahaba bursts out laughing, throwing his head back, accidentally slamming his head into the wall. Kyoutani was already laughing a little with him, but now he’s definitely laughing at him as Yahaba rubs his head. “Stop laughing!”

With one last chuckle, Kyoutani relaxes and nods at him. “You okay?”

“I’m _fine_ ,” Yahaba glowers, the throbbing in his head already disappearing. It never lasts that long, lucky for him. “I don’t remember reading ‘prince charming’ in any article. How would you know he was that kind of person?”

Kyoutani raises an eyebrow. “It seemed straightforward to me. He was really respectful and not really showing off like a few other heroes.”

“Huh,” Yahaba nods. _Note: show off in the next battle._

“What about you?”

He glances at his trainee. “What about me?”

“What do you think of the new hero?”

“Um…” With the amount of time he talks about himself and his hero persona, he hasn’t really actually _thought_ about himself _as_ his hero persona. He thinks back to his first fall, panicked throwing and shouting at the bots and minions, bickering with Miya and healing the occasional civilian. He scrunches his face and shrugs. “He’s… fine?”

Kyoutani squints, no, his entire _body_ squints at him. “ _Fine_? How can you _say_ that! He can fucking _heal_ people. He’s probably the person who healed Sparrow, Foxbane, _and_ Galaxy in the span of five hours! He’s probably the reason why all the heroes come back to the next battle in pristine shape a-and maybe he enhances their powers for a moment so they become invincible for a little bit. He healed that kid in _five minutes._ Imagine what he could do for the injured people _everywhere_. He could run _hospitals_ out of business!”

Yahaba blinks at Kyoutani’s sudden passionate rant. He lets his words sink in before grinning at his trainee. “You’ve thought about this a lot, haven’t you?”

“Two days,” Kyoutani says, raising two fingers. “I haven’t had a full night of sleep in two days, Yahaba.”

His heart leaps when Kyoutani says his name. He pinches himself and shakes his head. No it didn’t. With a fake yawn, he extends his legs in a stretch and pushes himself off the floor. “Thanks for reminding me. I need to send you home.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad,” Kyoutani actually yawns a few moments later, holding out his uninjured hand. Instead, Yahaba grabs onto both of his hands and pulls him up with an unintentional jump, holding onto the injured hand longer to completely heal it. The other man lets go to cover his mouth, yawning for a second time. He should probably be okay now. 

Kyoutani clears his throat. “I’ll probably be free on Saturday at six. We can finish whatever you had planned today then.”

It takes a moment too long for Yahaba to realize that he’s talking about his training sessions. “Oh. Oh, yeah, sure, I can come by later tomorrow. I’ll have to ask Yaku-san about his student, he’s a mess even though he’s a giant. He hits his head on the door frame every time he comes here.” 

Kyoutani furrows his eyebrows. “Okay..?”

Yeah, he’s not really sure why he kept talking either. Yahaba laughs it off and pats his back. “Yeah, it’s not like you can hit your head on it anyway.”

Kyoutani spins around and gapes at him. 

Yahaba backpedals, shaking his hands in front of him. “N-not that you’re _that_ short, I mean you’re taller than Yaku-san, who’s only, like, 163 cm?”

Kyoutani straightens up and crosses his arms, an unimpressed expression on his face. 

“Just go home,” Yahaba sighs, holding up his palm at him. He can’t lose the last of his dignity to Kyoutani; he needs to save some for his inevitable talk with Watari. Maybe he’ll sleep at the mansion. Wait, no, Shirabu and Miya could still be awake. Ugh, he can’t win.

“That’s the plan,” Kyoutani mumbles, walking towards his bag across the room. 

Yahaba peaks through his fingers when he thinks the other man’s pretty far away. _It’s already seven_ , Yahaba realizes gravely. He’s been sitting and talking with Kyoutani for _thirty minutes_. Didn’t he already tell him to leave earlier? Shaking his head, Yahaba catches up to Kyoutani and throws all his stuff in his bag, zipping it up when it’s stuffed to its limit. Then he remembers, _wait, it’s like ten degrees outside_ and unzips his bag to grab his jacket. 

All while Kyoutani’s staring at him like he’s a psychopath. “Dude…?”

Yahaba glances up at the blond, already in his jacket and scarf, packed up for the night. He looks nice in those colors. “What?”

“You just… nevermind,” Kyoutani shakes his head, heading towards the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Wait!”

He pauses and turns around, grunting in a questioning tone.

“I, uh,” Yahaba shrugs his strap across his shoulder. This could either be a good idea or a really _really_ bad idea. He catches up to him again and fixes his own scarf, smiling. “I’ll walk you to your building.”

Kyoutani freezes, his eyes widening. “Why?”

“You might fall asleep walking there,” Yahaba grins, knocking his foot to Kyoutani’s. 

At that statement, Kyoutani goes back to his glaring. Rolling his eyes, he continues walking out the door into the chilly evening. He _does_ wait for Yahaba, outside, as he shuts off the lights and locks up the doors, to Yahaba’s surprise. Kyoutani has his headphones on, probably listening to music, so Yahaba does the same with his pathetic ear plugs. 

They don’t need to be walking so close, but not even the smallest child could fit between the space they left between each other in the cold, windy weather. 

-_-_-

Yahaba ends up staying in the mansion. Or plans to, anyway.

After a nice send off for Kyoutani (they said bye and that’s it), he tried going back to his apartment. Only to be met with a Watari, leaning on the kitchen counter, a mug of hot tea in his hand. Once Yahaba actually noticed, he dropped his bag and immediately slammed the door, marching the other direction. He decides that it’s future-Yahaba’s problem to deal with and that Watari can think of every possible situation that could lead him to slam the door in his face.

Now though, Yahaba has to think of a way to sneak into his room without running into Shirabu or Miya; really, anyone who lives in the mansion. This also includes Kozume and Akaashi. He just doesn’t want to deal with anyone tonight. 

You might be thinking, why couldn’t he just use the loopevator? One, it’s emergencies only, and two, he’s heard from others that it’s the best make-out spot, so he’s not going to risk that chance at 8:57 at night.

His room is three floors up (the view was nice) and had a balcony. Not a very big one, but it had enough space to put a small table and one chair on the side. And it was locked from the inside. He should’ve accounted for that when he climbed up from the balcony below and knocked into his own table. 

It’s _still_ freezing outside and his bed looks so cozy with its heated blankets and soft pillows. 

“Seriously?” Yahaba seethes, pulling at the handle for the hundredth time. Kozume must’ve thought of everything if his strength can’t even break the lock. 

“Yahaba-san?”

Yahaba turns to his right at the voice. 

The sun set an hour ago, just when Kyoutani entered his building. He only remembers that because the light hit Kyoutani’s side in such a pleasant way when buildings or trees didn’t shadow them. Almost made him look nice. Almost.

Back to the voice, it’s Kageyama, the newbie. Even in the dark, his hair seemed to shine metallic midnight blue. What even is his power?

“Kageyama?”

“Do you need to get in?” The boy asks, tilting his head. He really is just a boy; like 20 from what he remembers Akaashi telling him. Ah, youth.

Should he… eh, Kageyama probably won’t tell anyone if he asks politely. Yahaba nods, “Um, yeah, actually.”

Stepping to the side, Kageyama watches Yahaba land on his small balcony, this time not knocking over any tables or chairs. Or maybe they moved away from his landing spot, he’s not really sure.

After letting him in, Yahaba thanks the boy, asking, “Hey, can you not tell anyone I was here? I just need a place to sleep.”

Kageyama nods, looking behind Yahaba. The door swings open quietly (oh, so he can control things with his mind. Neat) and Yahaba takes his leave, tiptoeing to his room.

So the thing about Kageyama’s room: it’s five rooms away from his. So tiptoeing might’ve been excessive and definitely inefficient because by the time he gets to the third door over ( _why are these rooms so big_ -) he hears another pair of steps making their way to the hallway.

That’s when Yahaba just starts _sprinting_ to his room. 

_Please don’t see me, please don’t see me, please don’t see me,_ he pleads, wishing he had Akaashi’s power for the thousandth time since he met the guy.

“Yahaba-chan?”

_Fuck._

“Fuck,” Yahaba mutters, sliding to his door and entering his fingerprint password, his finger shaking. He _definitely_ doesn’t want to talk to _him._

When he finally stops shaking enough for the system to recognize it’s him, the dark-haired hero already flies and lands beside him. 

He stops Yahaba with a hand on his shoulder. “Yahaba-chan, why are you running? It’s just me?”

 _That’s exactly why I’m running_ , Yahaba thinks as his shoulders slump. He loves Oikawa, really, but sometimes he’s too good at perceiving people. Yahaba laughs, rubbing his neck and opening his door. “I know, Oikawa-san! I’m just _really_ tired today, might go to sleep early.”

Oikawa pouts and tilts his head. “Can we talk for a few minutes? We haven’t had a conversation since you got promoted! What’s going on in your life, Yahaba-chan?”

Yahaba glances at the clock next to the door. 

9:03. 

Damn.

“Uh…” Yahaba strings out. If he says yes, Oikawa could end up getting involved in his turmoil or he could get actual advice for becoming a better hero. If he says no… well actually he might either completely ignore it or respect him and leave. “Well-”

“Perfect!” Oikawa claps, pushing the door open and waltzing into his room.

Yahaba drops his head in defeat. _Or he’ll disregard his decision and do whatever he wants_.

“This is going to be a long night,” Yahaba mutters to himself, closing the door and half-smiling to an excited Oikawa, who was sitting at the foot of the bed, like a parent who’s about to read a bedtime story to his kid. 

_A very long night._

_-_-_-_

Robotically walking to his bed, Yahaba flashes a tight-lipped smile at his senpai before flopping backwards onto his king-sized mattress. Maybe if he doesn’t say anything for long enough, Oikawa will just give up and leave. Pretending to fall asleep could be a good option too.

But Oikawa, not-serious Oikawa, wasn’t having that tonight. In the span of a minute, his expression changes from curious, to questioning, to upset, and finally, to annoyed as he slaps Yahaba’s thigh aggressively. 

Yahaba stares up at him. “Ow?!”

“I’m going to ask you again, Yahaba-chan,” he says, scrutinizing his gaze. “What’s going on in your life right now? We haven’t had a conversation since your first time on the field!”

Yahaba sighs, staring at his low-lit ceiling. He does  _ not _ want to talk about this. Not ever and not to anyone,  _ especially _ Oikawa. 

Watari! 

“Watari’s doing fine! We’re still working at the studio downtown. Nothing’s changed, Oikawa-san.”  _ Please leave. _

“Wata-chan’s doing good?” Oikawa smiles, “That’s nice to hear. I’m not sure about that ‘nothing’s changed’ statement. A lot of things have changed this year.”

_ Ain’t that the understatement of the year _ , Yahaba thinks to himself. Besides Synergy’s emergence, the studio has been popping off with new students. Enough that Yahaba might actually have to take in another. And also… well you know. 

The bed shifts as Oikawa fully sits on the bed, facing Yahaba. “Mmm? Something on your mind, Yahaba-chan? Frowning too much will give you wrinkles, you know?”

Yahaba blinks up at the brunet then relaxes his face to a neutral expression. “It’s nothing, Oikawa-san. I’m just really tired, that’s all.”

“You know,” Oikawa sighs after a minute, flopping on his stomach and leaning his hand on his hand. “Iwa-chan mentioned something a few weeks ago. He had this gym buddy that would workout with him every day and sometimes talk about stuff, like the news or whatever.”

_ This feels like storytime _ , Yahaba sighs.

“Then he told me that recently, he hasn’t been going as often because of his new trainer.”

Yahaba glances at Oikawa. “Why are you telling me this?”

Oikawa holds a finger up. “I’m not finished. Iwa-chan also noted that his gym buddy has had this trainer for a few months now, so why would he change his routine now?”

“Do you want me to answer that?”

“No,” Oikawa smiles. “It’s rhetorical. I know the answer.”

Yahaba scoffs and closes his eyes. “And?”

“Well, he said that,” Oikawa takes a deep breath and sighs, sinking his head on his folded arms. “Hmm. Yahaba-chan, you might know him. Kyouken?”

At the sound of the nickname, Yahaba inhales sharply. He frowns and shakes his head. “W-who?”

“Oh come on, I saw his name on your phone that one time.”

Yahaba points his finger up. “And you had no right to take it!”

“You left it here, open! I couldn’t just do nothing.”

“You could have,” Yahaba grumbles. “Why are we talking about him anyway?! He’s annoying, rude, and difficult to work with. He never listens to me and sometimes he never shows up at all!” He rambles, flailing his arms with each statement. He scoffs and crosses his arms. “You know, he actually skipped an  _ entire day _ of practice this week and didn’t even bother telling me, or at least sending me a text. I was in the studio, freezing my ass off for an hour and the next morning, he left me on delivered. Like I know you’re busy with work, but at least  _ look _ at your phone. And even tonight, he was in the grumpiest mood and he almost passed out from exhaustion  _ twice _ . Actually, he’s  _ always _ in a grumpy mood. He’s only smiled at me when he’s insulting me and, like, his only two emotions are  _ mad _ or _ tired _ and I’ve only known him for six-ish months! How does he have any friends or even have a job working with others? If he wasn’t so blunt and irritated all the time, maybe he’d have a decent life.”

Yahaba breathes heavily, clenching his jaw and crossing his arms in finality. His head feels like exploding and with every negative he points out he can hear another, smaller voice telling him he’s wrong.  _ But I’m not.  _

Oikawa tilts his head with a scarily neutral expression on his face. “So you hate him?”

Yahaba glances at Oikawa then back to the ceiling. He wills himself to relax. “... Y-yes.” 

Fuck. He didn’t mean to stutter.

The older man squints at him, an eyebrow raised. “Yes, you hate him?”

Yahaba nods, not trusting his voice to continue his statement. 

“Mmm,” he nods, tapping a beat on the bed. “Well, to answer my earlier question-” (Yahaba cringes, embarrassed from his rant) “-he said that his buddy wanted to train for longer with his trainer.”

Yahaba’s chest sinks.  _ Train for longer? _

“Well, if you think so, I guess that’s fine,” Oikawa sighs, pushing himself off the bed. “You look like you need some sleep, Yahaba. I’ll leave you to it, then.”

Propping himself up on his elbows, Yahaba watches Oikawa walk out of his room, leaving with a final wave and closing the door without a sound.

…

The ticking of the clock sings its lonely key in the room. Yahaba hasn’t moved in the past three minutes, taking in his own words and his senpai’s. 

He meant every word he said. 

…

Well, he might’ve said a white lie here and there, but that’s basically what Yahaba actually thought of Kyoutani.

_ From five months ago, _ his inner voice provides snarkily.  _ What about now?  _

His mind conveniently flashes to a small scene of the two of them laughing from just three hours ago.

“That’s just making it worse,” he grumbles to himself, pulling his hair. With a final sigh, Yahaba slides off his bed, ignoring his own voice and prepares for sleep.

  
  


He doesn’t get any.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha :,)
> 
> i was half-joking at the beginning; im not the best at angst :P
> 
> I'm basically done with the next chapter! (yes it got too long I had to split it) I'll probably have it out by this weekend!


	3. And there's one thing that I need from you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Yahaba finally gets some clarity and has some pretty amazing friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aka I tie things off with a sloppy but pretty bow
> 
> final chapter baby!   
> (unrelated but happy birthday noya! yahaba and watari definitely got drunk at his party in the studio. who's gonna tell yuma-san who broke all the clocks...)
> 
> enjoy!

Yahaba tries closing his eyes.

One moment, he’s laying down, face up with his hands clasped like a fucking corpse in his bed. The second, he’s standing in the middle of the studio, the lazy morning sunlight shining through the west side windows.

He squints. “What?”

“I definitely closed up for the night,” he says, glancing around the room from where he stood. “Did I forget something?”

When he turns around, he sees a familiar figure standing on the mats across from him. Yahaba tries rubbing his eyes. It’s still a little blurry, but it’s too perfect for it to not be him.

Yahaba sighs in relief. “Kyou-” he stops himself, shaking his head. That’s not right. He breathes out a small laugh. “Kentarou, what are we doing here? We canceled today’s lesson, remember?”

The figure walks up to him, clearing just enough to shape out his familiar haircut and gorgeous honey brown eyes. A halo forms around his body as he smiles at Yahaba, rolling his eyes. He begins to talk but nothing comes out of his mouth. Not words anyway.

Yahaba tilts his head. “What? You seriously need to stop muttering so much, I can’t hear you.”

Kyoutani pauses and tries again, his face a bit more serious than his playful one from earlier.

“I… I can’t hear you!” Yahaba frowns and tries again, leaning forward to check if he can hear him better.

Kyoutani stops him with a hand on his chest, his eyes widening before smiling softly. He says a few words and raises an eyebrow. 

“Did you just ask a question?” Yabaha smirks back at him, his chest warming at the other man’s smile. 

Kyoutani rolls his eyes, his head following the same path. He says a few more words, glancing down briefly. With his other hand, he snakes it up his left arm and cups Yahaba’s face, his expression too fond for his sharp features.

Yahaba gazes at him, a loud kick-drum pounding in his ears. He leans into the other man’s hand, hoping it’ll go away. Oh, he could probably tell him about last night since he’s in such a good mood right now. “I’m sorry for saying such bad things about you. I don’t mean it. None of it.”

The blond nods, rubbing circles on his cheek with his thumb. He leans forward and taps their foreheads together.

Yahaba flinches. He scoffs. “Cute,” he says, a smile spreading on his face. 

Kyoutani mouths a small sentence, his face turning tomato red but his eyes intent.

Yahaba blinks at the intensity of it. He whispers out, “Kentarou?”

He thinks he feels a puff of air as Kyoutani gulps and shakes his head. Slowly, the blond pulls his face closer, his eyelids halfway then-

Yahaba shoots up from his sheets. 

It’s pitch black except for the moonlight, spilling through the sliding doors onto his mattress. The sound from earlier doesn’t seem to be as loud as his panicked breathing as he tries to reel in what happened.

He pats his left cheek, the feeling foreign to anything he remembered. Or thinks he remembered. 

_Did that actually happen?_ He thinks, his jaw stuck closed from sleeping. _Don’t let it get away._

He leans his cheek onto his right hand instead, trying to remember the dream. 

_What dream?_ His mind taunts blankly, the cold catching up to him and his sweaty arms and face. 

_That dream! The one… it had… I think someone was holding me…_ He tries again, a headache forming in his tired brain.

He’s fully awake now, his consciousness barely there as he realizes what he’s doing. He looks at his hand, frowning at its clear sheen. Why was he sweating? It’s like, five degrees outside by now. It’s not even that cold in the room. 

Speaking of five, his alarm clock blinks 5:25 am, way earlier than he usually wakes up. And he’s still kind of tired from yesterday’s talk.

He bites his lip and glances outside. It’s not raining or windy. And there’s no way he’s going to get any more sleep.

Sighing, he throws off his blankets and changes into clean clothes; just a simple black tee and comfortable sweats with the same jacket and scarf he wore before sleeping. He fixes his bed to the best that he remembers it and escapes through his sliding door, automatically locking in place.

He jumps down and rolls onto his back, the frosty grass pricking him through his jacket.

“It’s really cold,” he tries saying, but it only comes out in a croaky whisper. Damn. He should’ve drank some water before leaving.

 _Well, there’s nothing I can do about it_ , Yahaba thinks as he gets off the ground. He’s got all this energy, so he decides to jog it off.

The city isn’t that far from the mansion, a five minute bus drive could get you to the border of the city. He jogs around aimlessly, letting the early morning sounds of nature occupy his brain. The bad thing about zoning out while on a run: it usually ends with him jogging back to his apartment.

He doesn’t realize he’s there until he’s in front of his door, staring down at his keyless hand. Right. He dropped everything he had and his keys inside with Watari last night.

He’s pretty sure he left his phone in his bag too, so he can’t even call the others, not like that would be a good idea anyway.

An apology would probably be the first thing Watari would want for ditching him and maybe kick him out of the apartment if he isn’t going to sleep there and already have another place to sleep in or maybe he’s already blocked him on all his social media for being a terrible friend. Not even a best friend.

“Shut up. I’ll be fine,” he tells himself. Watari would never do that. He’s just overthinking again.

With a final sigh, Yahaba hesitantly tries to open the door. It opens easily, unlocked and without a sound.

Inside, he sees most of the lights on, everything in the same spot as he last saw it. On the couch, a worried and lowkey mad Watari types rapidly on his phone, switching apps every second. He doesn’t notice Yahaba until he closes the door behind him with a _click_.

The shorter man shoots up from his spot, a dent in the couch showing how much time he’s been on it. “Dude, what happened to you!?” he shouts, maneuvering around his clutter to Yahaba. “Why did you just drop everything and leave?”

“You were going to make me talk about what happened with Kyou-... with him,” he says, feeling the weight of last night. Everything feels sore and kind of numb, especially his face, but that might still be from running outside.

He drags his legs to the table and drops to his knees, flopping his head on the hard wooden surface. Watari heats up water and grabs two mugs, quietly humming a tune to himself. It’s still relatively early, maybe six by now. The sun hasn’t even touched the top of the building across from them.

Watari places a mug in front of his face, crossing his legs and sitting down to his left. He blows on the steam before taking a sip and placing it beside his mug. It doesn’t look like Yahaba’s going to talk anytime soon, his eyes already unfocusing.

“So where did you sleep last night?”

 _The streets,_ Yahaba briefly thinks about saying. Could definitely lighten the energy in the room. He’s so glad he has a conscience when it tells him, _Hey, this isn’t a time for jokes, idiot_. It sounds strangely like Ennoshita’s but we’ll ignore that. “Akaashi’s place,” he lies easily. Well, it’s not really a lie, Akaashi partially lives in the mansion too. But he knows Watari doesn’t have Akaashi’s number and he trusts him, so he probably won’t pry.

“Okay,” Watari replies clearly, taking another sip of tea. He’s looking at his phone, scrolling up and down some app. Stupid side blocking screen protector. “We don’t have to talk about him if you don’t want to.”

Yahaba sighs in relief. “Oh thank goodness. I’m so confused about this, my brain feels like soup.”

“You didn’t get any sleep?”

“No,” Yahaba scoffs. “I couldn’t stop thinking about how I insulted him behind his back.” It takes another minute for him to realize what he blurted out. Apparently, close to 36 hours without sleep can make your word filter disappear. “Ugh, it’s like my brain hates me.” 

“Okay,” Watari nods, glancing at his phone every so often. “Is there a reason why?”

Yahaba lifts his head. “What?”

Covering his face with his mug, Watari shrugs. “You wouldn’t have been up all night if you didn’t care about this.”

Rolling his eyes, Yahaba lets his head drop back onto the table. “Seriously, have you been talking to Teru lately?”

“And Chikara and Futakuchi.”

“Ew, you had to bring him in?” Yahaba frowns. Why is he even friends with him? All they do is fight. And sometimes do crazy shit together but really, they’re arguing most of the time.

“He was the one who asked about you,” Watari smirks. “You haven’t insulted him at all this week and he’s worried.”

He turns his face down. His voice sounds muffled as he groans, “You guys are gross.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment for talking about your feelings.”

Yahaba lifts his head and props himself on his chin. “Why are we doing this.”

Watari shrugs. “You can tell me to stop.”

“...” 

“You know,” Watari says after a while, “maybe you’re overthinking things. You’re like… cockblocking yourself but on purpose.”

Yahaba shoots up and gapes at him with an incredulous stare. “ _Dude?_ ”

“No, I’m serious,” he continues, waving his mug around as he talks. “You need to _let go_ sometimes. Stop holding yourself back or something. You’re just going to lose more nights of sleep if you don’t accept whatever you’re feeling.”

Blinking, Yahaba lets Watari’s words process. Is it that easy? He squints at his friend. “When did you become so smart?”

“Shut up, I’ve always been better than you at this kind of thing. That’s why I had a girlfriend,” Watari says as he taps his mug to Yahaba’s shoulder. “And also Oikawa-san’s helping me.”

“What what,” Yahabs sits up, leaning forward to try to see his phone screen.

Watari shyly lifts his phone and shows him Oikawa’s long paragraph texts and his small replies. 

_Of course_. Yahaba thinks to himself, dropping his head for the third time that morning. He might have a bruise if he didn’t have healing powers. “I’m gonna murder him. In his sleep.”

“Don’t,” Watari says firmly. He tips his mug to its last droplets and nudges Yahaba’s head with his elbow. “Plus, Iwaizumi-san already called first dibs on that.”

Yahaba snorts. “Ha! Should’ve known.”

Watari shakes his head with a smile, taking one last look at his phone before flipping it upside down. He raises an eyebrow, dropping his cheek on the palm of his hand. “Shigeru.”

Yahaba glances at his friend’s now serious expression and turns away. His hands are folded in front of his face as he drops his own smile. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

He can feel Watari’s stare boring into his skull. They just talked, that’s it. Nothing happened and there isn’t anything to talk about. 

“... fine.”

He turns to Watari, who grabs his empty mug and Yahaba’s full and cold mug. He stands up with a sigh. “Go to sleep then. Or try to, at least. You look awful.”

“But I have to meet with Kyoutani at six in the studio to finish yesterday’s training.”

“Then sleep faster,” Watari shrugs, leaving Yahaba on the floor. 

“Good advice!” Yahaba shouts as Watari turns on the sink at full blast. When he doesn’t respond, Yahaba grunts and picks himself up. He flips Watari off as he grabs his bag and stomps to his room. 

-_-_-

He does actually get sleep for a while, he thinks maybe four hours, after telling himself that Kyoutani and thoughts of him can wait and that he’s also extremely tired. 

But it’s been six hours and now it’s lunchtime.

Watari slides open the door with a bang, startling Yahaba awake. “What the hell?”

When Watari sees him, he crosses his arms and squints at him. “How much sleep did you get?”

Yahaba glances at his alarm behind him. “When was 10:43?”

Watari pulls out his phone and breathes in sharply. He looks at Yahaba and his phone a few times before tilting his head. “Two hours ago?”

Yahaba stares up at his ceiling. Two? Hours?

“...eh, you’ll be fine,” Watari shrugs. Yahaba’s body drags its weight as Watari tries pulling Yahaba out of bed. “Come on, I’m hungry and I want to eat out.”

“Why can’t you go by yourself?” Yahaba whines, trying to pry away from him. “Or go with Sasaki-chan. You’re back together right?”

“ _No_ ,” Watari scoffs, “That was a thing in the past. Not anymore, remember I said I _had_ a girlfriend.”

Yahaba closes his eyes. “If you say so.”

“Hey, don’t pass out on me! You owe me for making me listen to Oikawa-san’s long texts.”

“You didn’t have to answer him.”

“Oh but I did. Look at you,” he says, letting go of his arm. Yahaba drops hard against the mattress like a doll, proving his point somehow. He’s just tired, that’s it. He can go a day without lunch. Maybe he can just watch Kyoutani at training today. He can admire his trainee's arms flexing from afar. Doesn’t sound like a bad idea.

“Hey,” Watari says, slapping his face. “Get ready. We’re leaving in five minutes.”

Yahaba blinks up at him, stunned. “Ow!?”

Watari slams the door shut, not giving him a chance to complain even more. 

-_-_-

The place they eat isn’t far from the apartment and plus they jogged there to get Yahaba’s heart pumping.

“What are you, my trainer?” Yahaba mumbles under his breath. Watari slaps the back of his head, not having any of it. Right. Short people tempers. 

Watari slaps the back of his head again. “I can hear you. And I’ll let you know, 171 centimeters isn’t short, I’m like average height.”

Yahaba nods, letting Watari guide him to the restaurant.

Apparently, Watari chose a different place than what he wanted originally, but chose the closer option because he quote “doesn’t want to drag a body across the city in broad daylight,” if Yahaba passes out while eating.

It’s a nice restaurant too, embracing that fall weather decor. Yahaba’s about to take his first bite out of his food when a smashing sound echoes nearby. 

Yahaba groans loudly, dropping his chopsticks as the other patrons stand up to see what happened. He yells at the sky. “Seriously! I just want food!”

He gets a few irritated stares, but he doesn’t care as multiple waitresses pick up plates and run back inside. He can make out a distinct shape on the reflection of a building: a Black Cobra robot.

Shouts start to shake the air as people start to pick up their stuff and run out and away. The robot turns to their street as Watari tugs at Yahaba’s arm, pointing back towards their apartment.

“Let’s get out of here!” He shouts sprinting ahead. 

Yahaba easily catches up, sometimes looking behind them at the Cobra’s machine. It’s definitely bigger than Yahaba’s ever fought before but luckily it’s really slow, so it probably hasn’t caused too much damage. Plus, Kozume’s probably paid enough money to redo the whole city with stronger buildings and safe houses underground.

Speaking of Kozume, they’re pretty close to the city’s edge, a little eastern to Kozume’s manion. He can probably get there in five minutes if he takes a few shortcuts- wait. Where’s his phone?

When they reach the apartment, the robot they encountered has already been destroyed by Galaxy. His phone rings loudly in his bag, as if it wasn’t buried under layers of random junk. 

Watari doesn’t seem fazed at the sound, choosing to focus instead on his own phone. Probably a news app. 

“Hey, uh, I have to take this?” Yahaba says, pointing at his phone. “And i-it looks like they got the robot covered so I’m gonna go to sleep okay?”

“Huh?” Watari glances at him with a weird look. “Sure. I mean if you’re able to sleep with this hype, go for it.”

“Thanks!” He shouts, locking his room behind him. Thank god he added that in this year, you never know when you have to escape through your window.

Before that though, Yahaba presses the green button on his phone, now simply vibrating in his hand. He brings it up to his ear. “Akaashi?”

“No,” the voice says flatly. This voice is softer, unlike Akaashi’s firm tone. “Hey, Yahaba.”

Yahaba blinks at his phone. _Why is it never Akaashi when he says it with so much confidence_? “Kozume?”

The voice sighs. “You can call me Kenma, remember?”

“Sorry, I’m still tired,” Yahaba shakes his head, rubbing his forehead. “Why are you calling?”

“I’m sending you on the field.”

Yahaba pauses his message and looks out the window. He’s pretty sure he saw Miya jump in a few minutes ago. “What? But isn’t-”

“The drone is back.”

A chill shoots up Yahaba’s spine. That thing again? Isn’t one use enough? Yahaba straightens up. “Kenma. Don’t tell me-”

“Kuro’s already on his way to the city. Miya, Semi, and Shirabu were called in a few minutes ago.”

“And Sugawara-san?”

“...” 

He doesn’t really check on everyone at the mansion, only showing up a few times here and there while most of them lived partially in the mansion more often than in their city apartments. It’s for convenience and luxury—it’s not called a mansion for nothing. But he does worry a bit more if one of them is actually upset or in a bad mood. Sugawara’s a new unknown; Yahaba doesn’t really know what to do about it.

“He’s helping to prepare Kageyama,” Kenma says after a moment.

“Is he not joining?”

“He’ll be in the control center with Keiji and me.”

Yahaba nods. “Okay. I’ll be there in five.”

“Don’t be late this time.”

The call immediately ends, leaving Yahaba to process their short conversation. Sugawara isn’t joining? He’s usually the last resort for organization and power as well (plants are dangerous. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. That’s why Yahaba only has fake plants in his room and in the mansion. For the aesthetic, of course). 

_We can worry about that later. We need to get going!_

“Right.”

Now fully awake, he remembers he doesn’t exactly have his suit with him, so he has to be more careful to sneak out of the apartment. Still out his window because there’s no other way, but he does use the other windows to climb down quickly. Too quickly that he doesn’t realize he’s not at ground floor yet and releases his grip too early. He falls with a comical crash, a wave of heat spreading down his arm and side where he tried to save himself. 

“Damn,” he mutters to himself, healing his definitely broken arm and probably a few ribs. He’s so glad the protocol for civilians is closing their windows and staying indoors. That would’ve been embarrassing. 

Another benefit of the civilian protocol: the streets are empty. Which means Yahaba can sprint to the loopevator faster without bumping into people.

When he arrives at the mansion, there are already two people standing in front of the plans room (Yahaba doesn’t know it’s actual name either, nor does he care) with Sugawara in front of them. 

“Yahaba?” Suga tilts his body to see him around the dark-haired hero. “What are you doing here?”

Shirabu and Kageyama turn to him a slight frown on their faces, though that might be their default face. Either way, the tension in the room kind of feels suffocating, so he decides to be straightforward.

“I was called.”

“By who?” 

Yahaba spins around at the second voice and sees Akaashi walking in with his hands behind his back. He stands beside Sugawara, double checking his upgrades on Shirabu. His suit does look tougher than the last time Yahaba saw it. Is it heavier too? He seems to be slouching.

“Um…” Yahaba fidgets, walking up to their group. He’s only the third shortest person in the room, but he feels smaller while standing next to all of them for some reason. Suga’s nice though, so it’s not as intense.

Akaashi raises an eyebrow. “Oikawa requested that you take the day off.”

“What?” _How can a superhero have a day off? That’s not a thing!_ “Why?”

“Well one,” Shirabu points out, “you look terrible.”

“Shut up. I don’t.”

Akaashi raises a hand between them. “He says you’re distracted and that you would be a liability if you went out.”

“A liability?!” Yahaba gapes in distress. A liability? He’s a liability for being emotional? What about him? Isn’t Oikawa more emotional than him? 

_He knows the difference between work and personal emotions_ . His mind retorts. _Remember that ‘What kind of newspaper worker is You Know Who’ obsession? Yeah, you need to work on that._

He’s about to bite back at his own brain that sounds kind of like Watari when another voice joins their conversation.

“I overrode that.”

They all turn to the opposite door as Kenma makes his way behind them. He places a hand on Suga’s shoulder.

At that, Suga looks away, shrinking with a frown on his face.

Akaashi glances at Suga then back at his teammate. “Kenma?”

The half-blond man looks at Suga before staring at the floor. “We sent out Kuro.”

Yahaba’s only seen Akaashi mildly surprised before, not that he knew that before today. Akaashi’s eyes widen, his whole body tensing. He turns to Suga. “Sugawara-san?”

“... I’ll be fine,” Suga says after a moment of silence. “I trust Kuroo. And we’ll be sending out Yahaba to make sure he comes out alive.”

The five of them look at Yahaba, worried but hopeful expressions on their faces.

“I-I..” Yahaba stutters, suddenly feeling the pressure of his role. “I can’t-”

“Listen,” Shirabu says reluctantly, placing a hand on his shoulder. “You’ll be fine. You have us; it’s not all about you so stop overthinking. We’ll be in the same area, so you can turn on the comms if you need any help.”

A little weight flies off his shoulder (not literally, come on). “I didn’t know you cared that much, Shirabu.”

He shoves Yahaba, causing him to laugh.

“He’s right though,” Suga sighs, gaining back his confidence. “You are all good at what you do. And Yahaba?”

Yahaba turns to his senior.

“If you’re feeling too overwhelmed, try to break things down into small steps. Always helped me when I was in a rut on the field.”

Yahaba places a hand on his chest. “Don’t tell me you’re retiring.”

Suga laughs, the sound sweeter than a strawberry, making everyone smile. “Don’t worry, I won’t. Just letting others have a chance,” he says, proudly slapping Kageyama’s back. 

The boy straightens up, slightly bowing to Suga. “Thank you for giving me this opportunity, Sugawara-san.”

“Don’t be so formal, Kageyama. We already have one of those,” Suga smiles, pointing his thumb at Akaashi.

Said formal person rolls his eyes, a small smile on his face. “Don’t listen to him, Kageyama-kun. Respect is a valuable asset.”

Kenma elbows Suga. “Enough motivational speaking. We have a boss to defeat.”

As if on cue, the comms static to life above them. “ _Guys, where are ya?! The Black Cobra has tons more minions and robots roamin’ the streets!_ ”

They hear more grunting before the connection cuts off. 

“Then let’s go,” Kageyama states, turning to Yahaba. _How is he so tall? What the hell are they putting in kid solution these days?_ The young recruit continues, looking at Shirabu. “I’ll wait for Yahaba-san to change then we’ll meet you and Miya-san there.”

He nods and calls the loopevator with a click on his suit. He waves shortly, leaving Yahaba, Kageyama, and the rest of the control tower in the room.

Suga explains to Akaashi their plan as Yahaba changes into his suit in his room. With one last motivational squeeze on the shoulder, their senior wishes them good luck and launches Kageyama and him towards the city, Kenma’s counter drone a menace in the distance.

-_-_-

They land somewhere near the edge of the city, Kageyama dropping him off at another spot to his request.

“There, where there’s a lot of screaming!”

Kageyama gives him a strange look but complies anyway, leaving him to fly over to another area closer to the center of the city.

Apparently, this side of the city didn’t get any warning from the news as there were still plenty of people running from something. A similarly sized robot to the one he and Watari were running from earlier, specifically. 

_It’s better to try now than never, right?_

One thing he forgot to consider: he’s kind of famous now. Combine that with online theories about his powers and desperate civilians running from a very big robot trying to destroy the place and you get a mess of crying and clinging people pleading for help.

Yahaba did help the first pair of civilians, a couple who got caught under some debris and were bleeding a bit on their foreheads and arms, but honestly, they could’ve easily wrapped some gauze on themselves and let it heal up, but they insisted, wanting him to heal them until the scars were practically gone. 

When Yahaba pulled away from them with his flair of charm (finally. Are people usually this bossy to heroes?), he runs only a shop’s distance before running into a small group of seven or eight people, begging him to heal them. They had similar cuts and no broken bones or severe injuries to the couple from earlier.

He already lost time healing that couple and healing this many people could take even longer. Plus, there could be even more closer to the danger zone, he can’t heal them all.

…

_He can’t heal them all._

That’s never been a problem Yahaba has ever had to think about since he’s been keeping his power hidden for so long. He’s always been able to heal his family, his teammates, sometimes his really close friends, albeit unknowingly, but still able to heal them to almost perfect condition. 

But now he’s got this crowd of strangers ganging up on him with sad and urgent expressions.

_I can’t heal them all._

“I’m sorry,” Yahaba says to them, backing up and jumping over them. He avoids more crowds, sticking to running in the middle of the road where it’s rare for civilians to roam, as it’s plenty safer running into buildings with city approved Kozume foundations.

Luckily, no one dares to run out to him and he gets to the base of the robot. Currently, over three and a half stories tall, the Cobra’s murky green robot is grabbing onto anything it sees: trees, unfortunate cars, and garbage cans trashing the roads with its claw-like hands. 

Yahaba’s dealt with smaller robots before and has a decent system of how he destroys them: knock them off the ground and twist their head off. Morbid, but it gets the job done. Luckily all the henchmen for the Black Cobra usually explode into a pile of ash, so it's a relatively easy clean up if you forget about the destroyed roads and bit off buildings, but those get fixed by, again, Kozume’s building crew. Maybe that’s why he’s so rich, from all his construction work. 

Anyways, Yahaba catches the robot’s attention, shouting “The Black Cobra Sucks!” and various other taunts while jumping around.

When the robot turns around with its hazard yellow gaze, Yahaba takes this opportunity to grab a fallen tree (yes a tree, not a branch) and throw it at the robot’s right leg, causing it to stumble off balance. 

_Perfect!_

Stepping a few paces back, Yahaba makes a running start and jumps off a sideways car, turning his body so his feet aimed at the robot’s right leg. The robot flails its arms in slow motion, falling forward as Yahaba hits its lower body instead. Backflipping, Yahaba lands a little bit away from where the robot tried to balance itself again. It’s huge, there’s no way it can catch itself in time.

As the sound of heavy creaking groan out of the defeated robot, Yahaba notices a tuft of familiar blond across the street—on the side the robot’s falling on.

_No!_

In practically the speed of light, Yahaba jumps into action and pushes Kyoutani, who was hiding behind a few fallen trees and concrete pieces, out of the way. He doesn’t get enough time to run out himself; the bot is already landing on his bottom half. 

_I was being too reckless_ , he panics, his arms shaking as he tries to push off the ground. _I should’ve checked if there were still people in the street. I can’t lose him._

The bot takes its sweet time exploding into itself (it’s a Black Cobra thing) and for the first time, Yahaba can’t feel his legs- no, his entire lower body. But his body is so used to his healing, so it doesn’t take him any longer than a few minutes to stand up again as Kyoutani regains consciousness across the block. 

Yahaba finds him, he doesn’t know if he should be mad or worried. Why would he hide in plain sight in front of a monster like that? Is he that passionate about his job to die? He could’ve gotten caught under all the debris falling everywhere.

But when Kyoutani makes eye contact with him, Yahaba can’t feel anything else but pure rage, the feelings from last night resurfacing.

His breathing speeds up as he stomps over to the reporter. He grabs Kyoutani’s shirt by the collar, pulling him up, his feet dangling off the ground. “Why are you here?!” he yells in his face, the reporter's eyes widening in fear. “You could’ve been killed!”

“Synergy!” A voice shouts from his earpiece. Shirabu. “That’s a civilian! Stop harassing them!”

Yahaba notices the notepad and pen clenched tightly in Kyoutani’s hands. He still held on?

He ignores the other hero. In fact, just hearing his voice just adds fuel to the fire. He shakes his head, nodding at the reporter's notepad. “Just for an interview? To get a first eye witness? They’re all _gone_!” he accidentally spits venomously. Kyoutani drops his paper and pen, his eyes switching between his own pair of eyes. “You should’ve evacuated just like them!”

Another faint voice crackles in the comms. He must’ve slammed his head onto the earpiece when he fell. Miya. “Syn- _Yahaba_! Stop!”

Sounds turn into static, his vision blurring as tears sting his eyes. “How are you so stupid! You’re always doing anything you want and being blunt about everything! Why can’t you think of others for _once!_ ”

“ _Yahaba!_ ” Calls Oikawa, but the sound falls to deaf ears.

A wave of energy explodes from Yahaba, pushing back anything and everything away within a mile radius. Even Kyoutani, who’s knocked back and out of Yahaba’s grasp. When Kyoutani lands in an empty space on the road, he screams, his entire body shaking in pain- wait. Pain?

Yahaba opens his eyes (when were they closed?) and sees red. Everything, even his tinted lenses are red: he can’t see anything. He drops to the floor, desperately rubbing his eyes to try to gain vision again.

Kyoutani must’ve fallen pretty nearby, as the only sound Yahaba can hear is his painful shouting. Yahaba tries to reach out for him, eyes squeezed closed as he crawls and bumps into debris in the road.

He gasps when he feels a shaking shoulder, the shouting turning into quiet sobbing. Only, the body flinches away at his touch.

Yahaba pulls his hand back. 

He hurt Kyoutani. 

Kyoutani is crying because of him.

Kyoutani is _in pain_ because of him.

Tears waterfall from his eyes, the combined shouting of his teammates blasting into his deaf ears. His vision barely coming back, a glowing perimeter surrounding the man in front of him.

Flashes of conversations in the past month play like a movie in his mind.

_“So why can’t you text him?”_

_Yahaba grips his phone tighter. “It doesn’t matter.”_

_His friend snorts and elbows his side. “If it’s you, it probably does.”_

_“You need to let go sometimes. Stop holding yourself back or something. You’re just going to lose more nights of sleep if you don’t accept whatever you’re feeling.”_

_“... recently, he hasn’t been going as often because of his new trainer.”_

_“...his gym buddy has had this trainer for a few months now, so why would he change his routine now?”_

_“To answer my earlier question,_

_he said that his buddy wanted to train for longer with his trainer.”_

The final nail on the coffin is the blond’s smile, the two of them laughing together in their little corner of the studio from just last night. The replay stops abruptly, showing Kyoutani curled into himself and tears staining his cheeks, his body covered head to toe with cuts and tears in his clothes.

Yahaba stares at his shaking hands. What if he can’t heal Kyoutani? Are his powers gone? Is this a curse?

He shakes his head, wiping the tears off of his face and bowing down, his hands the only barrier between his forehead and the ground.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, gasping and sniffling. “I’m sorry for everything. I’m sorry for hurting you. I’m sorry…”

…

Sorry? For what? Is that all?

_No. You know what else._

The voice isn’t anyone he knows. Or maybe he does know, the same low and rough sound he’s listened to for the past six months. The same voice that complains about his job and how he loves it. The same voice that argues for the sake of arguing and answers in clever comebacks. The same voice that watches princess movies with his little sister and the same voice that talks passionately about things he likes.

The man in front of him stopped shaking a few moments ago, the only movement left is his chest heaving in deep breaths, his knuckles turning white as he grips his arms.

 _He probably can’t hear me,_ he thinks. He’s in interminable pain that he can’t move. _He probably can’t hear me._

With a deep breath in and out, Yahaba slowly places a hand on his shoulder, his head following and leaning on it. In the smallest voice he can muster, the hero whispers, “I love you, Kyoutani.”

In a matter of milliseconds, his vision fully returns. He feels a surge of energy filling his body and, unbeknownst to him, his eyes shine a radiant cyan blue. The energy completely engulfs him and Kyoutani, the latter being completely healed, no scars or bruises in sight. When he finishes, Kyoutani gasps for air, his eyes blinking open.

His eyes direct to the hero. “Wh… what happened?”

Yahaba backs up, looking at his now steady hands. “I… I-”

The comms come back to life, full force. “ _Yahaba, get down here! Deal with Kyouken later!”_

_Perfect timing I guess._

“I have to go,” he says, standing up to his full height. He sees a notepad and pen underneath a car and a pile of trash behind Kyoutani and walks over to them. Quick notes of the fight and descriptions were scribbled in messy cursive, filling the entire first page. Synergy hands the reporter his notepad with a final nod, leaving him speechless as he bolts towards the main battle. 

-_-_-

Synergy shows up in no time, faster than he’s usually gone before, but he doesn’t notice. 

Kageyama, Crow, is the first one he spots, a bush following his gaze and ramming itself into a minion. “Where’s Galaxy?”

The raven themed hero blinks confusedly at him before pointing towards the more western part of the central city. “Uh, the center of the city. Kozume-san’s counter drone is also there.”

He pats Crow’s shoulder and nods. “Thanks!” He bids him farewell as he jumps over a few more crashed cars (why are there so many? People should just walk, it's easier) to the main fight.

When he gets there, the two large drones are battling it out in the sky as the rest of the main heroes push the minions and other bigger bots away from them.

Sparrow’s voice clamors from his left as he notices the destroyed buildings. “What the hell are you doing?!” He shouts, dodging away from a bot's moves and limping over to him. “Yelling at the civilian? What’s wrong with you?!”

Synergy grabs his arm and pulls them away from the bot—and three blocks away. 

“Uh..” Synergy blinks, looking at a surprised Sparrow. He turns the telepathic hero and heals him mindlessly. “Well, I kind of left him there.”

Sparrow gapes at him, his eyes widening in anger.

“No no no,” Synergy says, shaking his hands in front of him. “I healed him first, obviously, then I came here.”

“ _What-?!_ ”

“Sparrow!” Miya’s voice shouts from the comms. “Where’d ya go? Don’t tell me ya ditched me, I need some help over here!”

Sparrow slaps his earpiece, “We’ll be there in a moment!”

Before that though, Sparrow grabs onto his shoulders and shakes him. “Why are your eyes glowing?!”

“My eyes are _what_?”

Foxbane's voice echos into both of their ears. " _Today Sparrow!_ ”

The shorter hero shakes his head. “Nevermind, take us back!”

“I don’t even know how I did that!" Synergy shrugs. "Or why my eyes are glowing! Wait, what color?”

“That’s not important!” Sparrow groans, grabbing his arm and jumping up the roofs, returning to the battle.

Foxbane’s surrounded by three minions, severely injured. His right leg is limp and so is his left arm as he throws fireballs at the monsters.

Sparrow jumps in and distracts them as Synergy falls behind and heals Miya. Though, actually, he’s healing at a faster rate than he usually does. Is this part of the eyes glowing thing?

Foxbane blinks in surprise, the sound of minions shrieking filling as background noise. “Yahaba-kun? Wait, Synergy, your eyes-”

“I know. I think,” Synergy nods, helping Foxbane to his feet. 

His brows furrow, which is funny because he’s wearing a full face mask, so his expression looks even more exaggerated. “That’s weird.”

“Thanks.”

A loud crash interrupts their little conversation as Sparrow destroys the last minion.

He jumps over to them, clapping the dust off his hands. “Fox, you could’ve just hit them with your firepower.”

“Shut yer trap, bird brain!” Foxbane shouts, throwing his arms in the air. “I was! Plus I was hella injured.”

Yahaba straightens up, walking in front of them and looking at the direction the other heroes were at. “We should help them.”

Miya and Shirabu glance at each other then to Yahaba. They nod in silent agreement and follow him to where Semi and Oikawa were taking care of the stronger monsters.

Synergy points at Semi and directs them to him. “We’ll help Seismic then we’ll help Galaxy. Got it?”

Nodding, they jump over to Seismic’s area, a fight 5-to-1. Sparrow pulls Seismic away as Foxbane tackles one of the bots on its back and hands him to Synergy.

“Synergy?” Seismic squinting at him.

“Yeah, it’s me,” Yahaba tries smiling, healing his senior hero’s strained vocal cords and his chest. He doesn’t have any major cuts or bruises, which should be a relief to Shirabu later. “After we all get rid of your monsters, we’ll be helping Oikawa-san, okay?”

Semi’s eyes widen. Then he laughs, his whole body shaking as he slaps Yahaba’s back. “Sounds like a good idea to me!”

Yahaba pauses at his reaction. _That’s a weird way to answer a plan, but anyways-_

Once the rest of the minions and last of the bots are eliminated by the four of them, they make their way to Galaxy. 

At this point, there aren’t any more bots, as minions are so much stronger than those piles of machines. They slide between Oikawa and the minion he’s currently trying to take down.

When Galaxy recognizes who stopped the minion, he glares at Synergy’s outstretched hand. He glances above him at the three other heroes working together at the larger than life minion, a flash of shock in his eyes. He looks back to Synergy. “Ya-... Synergy.”

Yahaba bows his head. “Please forgive me.”

A tense moment passes as the shouting of Sparrow, Foxbane and Seismic fill their ears. Yahaba fucked up, but he also led their teammates successfully.

Galaxy’s still flying, his left leg bleeding and his opposite arm dislocated. “You had no right to yell or touch him.”

Yahaba squeezes the fist at his side and takes a deep breath. “I know.”

It takes another moment before Oikawa accepts his help, floating to the ground and grabbing onto his hand.

Yahaba nods, holding onto Oikawa’s shoulder and popping it back into place. “Thank you.”

Synergy quickly heals up Galaxy as the next biggest minion overwhelms Seismic and Sparrow, throwing them to the side of a crumbling building.

He’s not even done healing Galaxy yet and Synergy knows that that’s definitely going to be more broken bones, but he still glares at the building anyway.

Galaxy still thanks him (this time with a smile that looks genuine, so maybe he’s forgiven?) and flies over to Foxbane, helping him finish off the final minion.

Synergy notices Crow watching from the other side of the city, his eyes sparkling in awe. _Ah, youth._

They’re almost out in the clear as Foxbane and Galaxy land in front of him, but something’s wrong. Yahaba’s head feels all jumbled from all this healing and fighting and thinking that he almost collapses if not for Foxbane catching him. “Woah, Synergy, you okay? Yer eyes are flickerin’ on and off.”

Synergy rubs his head, trying to keep his own balance instead of leaning on the fox themed hero. “Dizzy.”

“Rest up then.”

Foxbane and Synergy look up as Galaxy places a hand on his shoulder. “Foxbane and I will help Kuro-chan destroy the Terror titan. Rest up with Shira-chan and Semi.”

Yahaba glances behind them at the youngest superhero, at his hopeful expression. “You mean Foxbane, you, and Crow back there?”

The two of them turn around at their newest recruit, before looking at each other. Oikawa gives him a patient smile. “I suppose, if I must,” he sighs dramatically.

Foxbane cackles at his reaction and Yahaba probably would've too if he weren’t so damn tired. They know how he feels about him; it’s not like he hates him, he’s just being competitive as they all were, except he’s extra competitive with that boy for some reason. 

With a final eye roll, Galaxy calls over Crow as Foxbane drops off Synergy with Sparrow and Seismic. Miya waves him goodbye as Crow helps him up onto his piece of metal that he’s apparently controlling with his mind.

And even though Galaxy said to just rest up, Yahaba still heals his two teammates before completely passing out.

As he feels the last bit of his energy draining, he whispers a final, “I’m sorry, Oikawa-san.”

-_-_-

The next time he opens his eyes, he’s in the infirmary. He should know, this is where he mostly heals the other heroes after their battles. Except this time, he’s the one on the cot surrounded by all the supers. 

To his right, Shirabu and Miya were bickering quietly between themselves, their arms hanging at his side, Akaashi behind them leaning against the wall. Suga and Kenma are in front of him, sitting at his feet. Oikawa’s sitting on his left, Kuroo sitting on the chair’s armrest and Kageyama behind him, crossing his arms and looking down. Kuroo looks pretty awful with his bandages decorating his torso, arms, and face.

Yahaba tries to open his mouth, but it's stuck with that gross morning sticky feeling. He swallows and tests out his voice. “Do I need to heal you?” Yahaba croaks to Kuroo.

All the heroes react at the same time, pushing off the walls or looking at him and grabbing one of his limbs.

Oikawa grasps onto his hand as Suga holds his foot, Shirabu holding onto his right forearm.

“Yahaba-chan? Are you okay?”

 _That was kind of painful._ Yahaba nods in reply, glancing up to Kuroo once again.

Their co-leader shakes his head, Kenma answering instead. “He only had a few minor injuries from jostling around in the cockpit a lot.”

 _Come on, Yahaba._ “What happened?”

“We won,” Suga answers simply, relieved.

“We won,” Yahaba repeats, finally relaxing his shoulders. _We won._

“The full answer to your question, Yahaba-san,” Akaashi says, sitting beside his leg, “Kuroo-san was able to have an advantage against the Terror Titan when Galaxy, Foxbane, and Crow surrounded it from every side, leaving it with nowhere to go. The Ultra Star fired its untested lazer from above and destroyed the Terror Titan. And as you can tell, Kuroo-san is fine, so our counter drone worked successfully.”

Oikawa nods, “Thank you Aka-chan. And you too, Yahaba. Your hero name really fits you.”

A swelling feeling spreads in Yahaba’s chest. That’s a good thing to hear.

“And what the hell was up with yer eyes?”

Shirabu wacks Atsumu’s arm and a hard stare.

“Ow? What’s that for?” Atsumu says, rubbing his arm and glaring at the other hero. “I’m just wonderin’ since ya were goin’ crazy in the beginnin’ there.”

Yahaba’s mind flashes back to the falling robot, Kyoutani’s scared face, his blurry vision and Kyoutani screaming on the ground. He cringes in pseudo-pain, Kuroo pushing him back against the cot and patting his head in comfort.

A silent moment passes, Shirabu sending death glares at Miya, who simply rubs his neck in embarrassment. Oikawa speaks up, “I need to talk with Yahaba-chan for a bit.”

They all look at each other before standing to leave, all of them wishing Yahaba a quick recovery and patting either his leg or foot. 

When the door closes and a few more silent moments go by, Oikawa rubs his eyes with his other hand and sighs. _He definitely looks tired now_ , Yahaba thinks. His confident shine kind of looks dull. Hopefully, he can take his own break after this.

 _Let's just get the elephant in the room out of the way._ Yahaba sighs, squeezing his hand. “Watari told you.”

Oikawa glances up at him. “About?”

Yahaba scoffs, letting his eyes close. “You know. You’ve probably known for a while. That's why you helped him?”

“...”

Yahaba nods in confirmation. So this is what he meant to be distracted. He’ll work on that. Later.

“You need to apologize to him,” Oikawa sighs, letting go of his hand and folding his two together. “Disregarding your internal issues, you’re still a hero who yelled at a civilian." He stands to leave, rubbing his arm. “Hopefully he hasn’t said anything online. Go get some sleep, Yahaba.”

Oikawa doesn’t turn back, walking out of the room with his hands in his pockets and turning off the light behind him as he closes the door. The only light in the room is the soft afternoon sunlight shining through the window curtains. He passes out immediately. 

The clock reads 3:58, approximately 2 hours after the first robot appeared in the city.

-_-_-

It’s about 5:30 when he wakes up. His suit is folded delicately at the bottom of his cot, a small note placed on top of it.

_I’m proud of you._

Tears prick Yahaba’s eyes. This is Oikawa’s handwriting. 

He wipes away the unfallen tears and changes into his suit, layering a thick trench coat over it and bringing the provided grapple gun next to it. He strolls to the bus stop nearby to the city, enjoying the cool evening breeze, the sun closer to setting in the late fall season.

The bus ride is quiet, only him and another person stationary, a student probably. When he arrives at the city, he walks lazily towards Kyoutani’s apartment building. He doesn’t get far when he sees a familiar head of hair, opting to hide between two buildings and waiting for him to pass by.

The reporter’s focus is on his screen, a relaxed expression on his face until Yahaba snatches Kyoutani’s waist and pulls them both up to the roof.

Which is a bad idea, Yahaba figures out pretty fast as Kyoutani tackles him and tries to pin him down. Obviously, he can’t and Yahaba ends up flipping and pinning Kyoutani to the ground with relative ease.

Kyoutani stops struggling when he realizes who took him, his eyes widening. “Synergy.”

At the sound of his title, Yahaba quickly shuffles off of him and nods, turning his head away. 

Kyoutani picks himself up, “What.. what are you doing here?”

“Uh…” Rubbing the back of his neck, he asks, “What do you remember from the fight?”

Kyoutani blinks at him, before turning his gaze to the ground, pocketing his phone. “Well, I remember you pushing me away from the robot. And um, you yelling at me,” Yahaba cringes at that, “Then your eyes turned red and like a wave of energy bounced off you and then everything started hurting. I can’t really remember much of anything while I was in pain, but then I was completely fine. You were crying and holding onto me, too, and um, but you stopped suddenly and then you opened your eyes and they were blue. Then you left to help the rest of the heroes.”

Yahaba nods with every true sentence, glancing up when a new piece of info is shared (and definitely blushing too). Luckily he doesn't remember exactly _why_ he was crying, but still, he knows too much. “So… everything?”

Kyoutani shrugs helplessly. “Probably, based on your reaction.”

Yahaba clenches his fists as he crosses his arms. Damn. He probably knew more than he did at the moment. 

“If you’re wondering,” Kyoutani continues after a while, “I didn’t write about any of that and I didn’t see any articles about what happened at that street. Just you in the main battle with your ‘new powers’”

Yahaba raises an eyebrow. “New powers? My eyes just glowed blue and that’s it.”

“Well, it’s more like your powers were enhanced, right? You were faster and stronger.”

“Damn, these news sources are getting really good at covering things. And I was healing a lot faster too,” Yahaba points out proudly, “But I drained energy really quick, so that’s a negative out of that state I guess.”

“Oh,” Kyoutani nods, probably noting that in his brain. “Well when you got mad about my notepad, I didn’t want to get you even more riled up, and I won’t write about it if you don’t want me to. Y-your, uh, evil mode? You weren’t evil, you were just angry, unless you were? Evil, I mean.”

“Just mad,” Yahaba sighs. After a moment, Yahaba bows in apology for the third time that day. “I’m sorry for yelling at you. You just… reminded me of a friend.”

“Woah, woah, woah.” Yahaba feels a hand on his shoulder and looks up. A distressed look inked itself onto Kyoutani’s face. “Is this for real? Is a superhero _actually_ apologizing to me?”

Yahaba squints at him. “Yeah. I need to. We can’t just shout at civilians, you know?”

“But you do that all the time?”

Yahaba straightens slightly. “... this time is different. I shouted at you about… about things that aren’t about directing you to safety. I shouted at _you_ , as a person.”

Kyoutani drops his hand. “Oh…”

Another moment goes by in silence as they take in the events of that day. 

“So uh, yeah,” Synergy says, standing back to his full height. Which, by the way, is a lot taller than Kyoutani with his boots on. “You can talk about it.”

Kyoutani blinks up at him. “What?”

“About my upgrades and… and about the conflicting side of my powers. It’s you who can decide what to do with that information. I don’t care what others think," he shrugs. He pounds a fist to his chest, displaying his grandest grin at the reporter. "I’m still going to protect this city like my whole life depends on it.”

Kyoutani gapes at him before he covers his face, laughing into his hand softly. “That’s reassuring to hear.”

Yahaba nods, smiling back at him. With a small breath, he hypes himself up in his brain. “You have a cute laugh.”

Kyoutani’s eyes widen, a small blush on his face before he looks away rubbing the back of his neck. “Shut up, I do not.”

“You do.”

He glares at the taller of the two. “Are you going to keep me trapped here on the roof or are you going to let me down?”

Yahaba sighs, shrugging his shoulders dramatically. “ _Fine_ ,” he says, holding out his hand to him.

Kyoutani skeptically looks at it before giving up and holding onto his forearm instead. Either way, Yahaba spins him around, the curl pulling him to Synergy’s chest before they jump down the side of the building, letting the grapple gun slow their descent down.

He releases Kyoutani once they touch the ground, the blond pulling out his phone in a daze.

“Oh shoot,” he cringes at the screen, “Uh, well, I guess I can be late.”

“What time is it?”

“It’s ten ‘til six,” Kyoutani announces, showing him his phone. “I still have a few minutes until I have to meet someone.”

When Yahaba looks up to Kyoutani, the setting sun creates a golden halo around his body. His mind supplies a brief image of a similar figure, a different light and mood as this one, but the same feeling. 

Yahaba stutters, “O-okay, well, um. I’m sorry again for yelling at you.”

Kyoutani glances at him. “Apology accepted. Thanks for saving me.”

“All in a hero's hard work,” Yahaba playfully flexes, which makes Kyoutani laugh out loud. Yahaba can’t even deny it when his chest squeezes.

Kyoutani rolls his eyes and turns around, waving behind him with a sigh. “If you say so. Bye Synergy.”

Yahaba watches Kyoutani’s back as he focuses back on his phone. He leaves without a word.

In a matter of three minutes, Yahaba’s back in his apartment, jumping through his window and landing next to his bedside drawer. He sighs in relief when he sees his door still locked and changes from his suit into a different pair of joggers and a simple t-shirt. He trades his trenchcoat with his thickest jacket and walks out of his room.

As he closes his door behind him, he notices Watari on the couch, watching TV. Watari turns around halfway, seemingly entranced by the movie he’s watching and somehow the game on his computer.

He notices his outfit and goes back to his game. “Good luck,” is all he says to him, trying to hide his smile.

“Thanks,” Yahaba calls out, grabbing his keys and his duffle bag. His phone’s probably dead now, but he brings it with him anyway. He doubts there’ll be any important calls happening tonight.

Hopefully, he’s not too late. And that Yaku-san already left with Lev.

-_-_-

The air unit whirs to life as Kyoutani’s session with Yahaba winds down. Kyoutani’s relaxing on the mats, scrolling through his phone as Yahaba caps his bottle.

“I’m _exhausted_ ,” Yahaba groans, dropping beside the reporter. “I can barely move my body.”

Kyoutani raises an eyebrow. “You didn’t do anything? You just watched me lift weights.”

“Yes, and you did very good,” Yahaba nods sleepily. 

“I thought we were gonna have a reverse of yesterday.”

“Ha ha, very funny,” Yahaba deadpans, dropping on the mat. “You should quit your day job and be a comedian.”

Kyoutani frowns at him before going back to his scrolling. Today _has_ been pretty hectic after all, not including the session, which was actually pretty chill considering how it usually was. 

“What’re you doing?”

Kyoutani glances up at Yahaba, who’s now hovering his face above his shoulder. He blinks at their proximity then clicks on _13 more replies_. “Reading a recent thread on the fight.”

“Mmm,” Yahaba nods, quietly scanning the words on the screen. Kyoutani bites his lip and glares at his phone. 

They sit like that for a while, Kyoutani occasionally scrolling down to the next reply, reacting in some way. Like rubbing his chin or his temple. He gets so lost into the reading that he doesn’t notice Yahaba’s fallen asleep until his head plops onto his shoulder.

Kyoutani flinches. _Is this guy serious?_ He double-checks his pulse in his wrist (because what if he’s just holding a dead body) and shakes his shoulder to see if he’s faking, but he’s not? His breathing is really slow so that probably confirms it.

He notices that Yahaba sleeps with a pout, or maybe he was trying really hard to stay awake and reading was a way to do that. His eyebrows were knit together, forming creases in his smooth forehead.

Sighing, Kyoutani relaxes his shoulder and smoothens Yahaba’s forehead with two fingers. “Hypocrite,” he whispers, his fingers barely reaching the edge of his forehead.

At that, Yahaba relaxes, a small smile forming on his lips as he sinks into Kyoutani’s shoulder. Kyoutani blinks at the reaction and huffs quietly, sweeping Yahaba’s bangs to the side and softly kissing his temple. He leans his own head onto his partner’s—can he call him that?—head and continues to read, threading his own fingers through his slender, long ones. Yahaba probably won’t mind and will never know until he wakes him, which won’t be for a while. 

Speaking of waking, Yahaba really needs to fix his sleep schedule. Kyoutani won’t admit it out loud, but he really does listen to Yahaba’s advice, going to sleep at 11 or when he gets home from work and waking up at seven every day. So what if he’s lying every morning? It’s fun riling Yahaba up. 

But these quiet moments are nice too. He feels Yahaba’s hand twitch before tightening his grip. Kyoutani shakes his head fondly, shifting to a little more comfortable position and squeezing Yahaba’s hand back. 

The automatic lights of the studio shut off one at a time everywhere but where they were from inactivity. The wind has picked up and the autumn sun has set hours ago, but for some reason (he definitely knows it), Kyoutani feels warm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kyoutani to Yahaba: Can you come thru? 
> 
> Man. I can't believe I finished this. And with such a sappy ending too.
> 
> Oh, after the last scene, Watari gets some serious blackmail against Yahaba after Kyoutani carries him to his apartment in his arms (he also sends it to Oikawa and Ennoshita to make sure it never disappears). He has to go back to the studio since Kyoutani didn't exactly know how to lock up (and also gets more tea from a very blushy Kyoutani).
> 
> That's a wrap!
> 
>   
> Some things about the au:  
> \- Synergy, Kyoutani, and Yahaba end up in a love triangle after this but that's a story for another day. 
> 
> \- Iwaizumi is Ushijima's personal trainer (he still continues volleyball in this au) and has to deal with Oikawa's needy personality and Galaxy's persistent one. He also has to listen to Kyoutani's rambles about his unnamed trainer and at this point, he's too far invested to back out.  
> \- Osamu keeps getting really close to finding out Atsumu's actual job but somehow its thrown out of the window like some tv show restart.  
> \- Oikawa is genuine friends with Sugawara (he's okay now, btw), but was a one night stand with Kuroo, which is how they met. He helped Kuroo with Kenma in turn that he helps him with Iwaizumi. 
> 
> \- Koganegawa was supposed to be in the au, but he wasn't needed for plot purposes :( HOWEVER, he's recently joined the Sendai Frogs superhero department and (in secret) is currently training under retired Moniwa.  
> \- Tsukishima... knows Hinata? And works side by side with Kyouken and Kogane. Yamaguchi is friends with Hinata, Noya, Suga (and in turn Kageyama).  
> \- Speaking of newspapers, MSBY superhero department also includes Hinata, Bokuto, and ya boi, Sakusa Kiyoomi.  
> \- Kageyama runs into Hinata his first go (which is why he was on the opposite side of the final battle) and it is *awkward*  
> \- Yes, Akaashi and Bokuto are in a relationship. No, Akaashi hasn't told Bokuto his job and vise versa  
> \- Atsumu shamelessly flirts with Sakusa at work but can't talk to him in his suit for some reason (Sakusa's trying to reveal his identity too, so there's that)
> 
> That's all I have for ya! Comment if you want to see one of these in its own spin-off chapter ;)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Shout about Haikyuu with me on twitter! @lovegeek15


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